


Redamancy

by adarklingplain



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bromance to Romance, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Slow Burn, They're all dorks, but who are we kidding it was a romance all along, no sadness only gay, they don't know they're in love but everyone else does
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-01-26 16:17:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 52,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1694573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adarklingplain/pseuds/adarklingplain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Schoolwork. Too much coffee. Nights spent on a rooftop. Somewhere in between, Jean and Marco become friends.<br/>It's not easy going; there's fire alarms, run-ins with the crazy clean freak Criminal Law teacher, and Jean and Eren's drunken bromance, but their biggest problem is reminding everyone that they're totally not crushing on each other. (Except, you know, they totally are.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meetings

**Author's Note:**

> Because the world can never have enough Jeanmarco college AUs. Any and all feedback is loved, please tell me what you liked/hated and I'll do my best to address it!

_Jean_

By the time I managed to find a table in the coffee house I was tired, pissed off, and more than willing to axe a few people if it meant getting caffeine in my system. I liked Garrison Coffee: the prices were reasonable, the baristas not over-friendly, and most importantly, they made damn good drinks. Naturally, it was always packed with students, but I guess it was acceptable considering all the perks the place had.

Sasha and Connie were in line and had promised to get my order while I located somewhere for us to sit, but they would probably forget, judging by the way they were eyeing the pastries on display. When we agreed to meet to study for a couple of hours I was sort of apprehensive - nine times out of ten, whenever the three of us tried to 'study' together it usually developed into ordering pizza and playing Mario Kart, but this time we agreed we'd have to get our heads down.

I played with my earphone cable as I scanned for tables; the only available one I found was tucked into the corner of the room and made for just two seats, but there was a free place at the table next to it, occupied by just one guy.

"Hey," I said, and the boy at the table beside mine looked up from his book. The first impression I got was _woah, freckles_ which was immediately followed by a blast of _woah, smile_. It was a bit of a shock, to be honest.

"Hello!" the guy replied. "Can I do anything for you?"

I gestured my head to the spare chair. "Can I borrow that? My friends are in line."

"Sure," Freckles said, still smiling. It was beginning to make me feel uncomfortable, so I just nodded and pulled the chair over; the tables were so close together it didn't take much effort. I'd gotten a few of my books spread out and was opening my notepad when Connie and Sasha appeared, dumping their purchases on top of all my work.

I glared, but felt slightly mollified when I saw they'd remembered my coffee, taking a drink as the whirlwind of Sasha and Connie settled around me. I tapped the toe of my Converse against a table leg, half-listening to Sasha telling some exaggerated story, arms waving all over the place.

"Jesus Christ, Sasha," I warned her as she nearly caught me a glancing blow. In return, she watched me smugly as she stuffed a muffin she'd bought into her face and started chewing on it. I grimaced and was about to start swearing at her for getting crumbs on my work when Connie spoke.

"Marco, hey! We haven't talked in a while, man. What's new with you?"

I looked up to see Connie talking to the freckled guy at the table beside ours, who I assumed must be Marco.

The boy grinned and set his book down on the table. "Not much. Revising for tests and stuff. How about you?"

Connie shrugged. "Avoiding revising, mainly. I got a job here too, which is pretty cool. I start next week."

"Really? That's great, you'll make a lot in tips with the business they get here..."

My interest trailed out of the conversation and I directed my focus back onto my textbook, only to be distracted a few minutes later by the buzzed-head terror.

"Have you met Jean yet? I know you know Sasha but hey, Jean, introduce yourself. Don't be an asshole."

I scowled, because I really was trying to get some work done, but stuck a hand out at Marco. "Hi. Jean Kirschtein."

Marco took my hand and shook it tightly - his grip was warm, and strong, the sleeves of his polo shirt rolled back to his forearms. Idly, I noticed he had a bridge of freckles across his nose. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Marco Bodt." He turned to Connie.

"Jean and I actually already spoke when he took the extra chair from my table. I haven't seen him acting like an asshole yet, but I guess there's still time left in the day."

He grinned sunnily, and I couldn't decide whether to feel amused or offended. Maybe a bit of both?

At that moment Sasha, who had previously been absent from the conversation, swallowed a large piece of food and shot a wink across the table at Marco. "Hi! We've not seen each other in aaages."

Marco opened his mouth to reply, but Sasha then caught Connie sneakily trying to steal her slice of apple pie and punched his arm. He should've known better by now, I thought pityingly.

"Ouch!" Connie yelled, rubbing at the bruised limb, and started pulling on Sasha's ponytail. Marco and I looked on as the two tussled in their seats.

"Are they always like this?" asked Marco, who seemingly found the situation funny.

"Pretty much," I said dryly. Sasha and Connie's semi-playful public brawls were something I had sadly grown used to. "How'd you know these two anyway?"

"We sit together in European History." He tapped his hand against the table. "We haven't talked for a couple of days though, I've been trying to cram for tests."

I made a noise of agreement. Two months into pre-law and it was already a bitch. "What're you majoring in?"

"I'm pre-med. It's great, but it's really hard." Marco lifted up one of his thick books to accentuate his point, with a self-deprecating smile. "What about you?"

"Pre-law," I told him. Marco whistled. "Tough."

"It is," I said, "but I'm not too bothered. I'm good at it." It was true: I procrastinated a lot, but I generally worked hard at classes, and I did well in them as long as Jaeger didn't make some obnoxious comment that set the two of us at each other's throats.

Just then, Connie's head emerged from the headlock Sasha had put him in. He extricated his phone from his pocket and unlocked the screen. "Shit, I've got class in ten minutes," he announced, stretching to reach his backpack on the floor.

"What happened to studying together?" I protested as Sasha stood up, shoving the last piece of pie in her mouth. Trust them to skip out on a study session they'd arranged themselves.

"Sorry Jean," she mumbled. "But Theatre is a kick-ass class." She waved goodbye to Marco and me and pulled Connie away with her. We watched as, once they were outside the coffee house, Connie jumped on Sasha's back and pointed forward, uttering a loud war cry when she began to jog.

"I've missed them," Marco said affectionately.

"Yeah? I wish I could get rid of them more often," I grumbled, eyes fixed on the page in front of me, determined to revise something even if my study partners had bailed.

"Have you known them long?"

"Since freshman year of high school," I admitted. "They latched onto me during the first week and just...never left." It was just my luck to get landed with the pair of dorks.

Marco laughed. It was a nice sound, deep and genuine, but I really couldn't have cared less.

"Look, there's this test coming up that I've got to revise for..." I hoped Marco would take the hint and he did, ducking his head and looking abashed. "Sorry. I'm stopping you from studying, aren't I?" He paused. "But - um - is there any chance that the test is for Government?"

I glanced over at him, eyes narrowed in confusion. "How did you know that?"

Marco rubbed a hand against the back of his neck sheepishly. "Sorry, I know that sounded weird, but I'm in your Government class. You sit at the end of my row."

"Oh. Right. I don't think I've seen you there before."

Marco blushed, then leant forward as if making a confession. "I fall asleep in there a lot," he said. "So I don't really participate. One time I woke up and the only people in the room were me and the cleaner. I'd slept there past dinner."

I smirked. "Smooth."

"Tell me about it. So, since we're studying for the same test, do you want to maybe do it together?"

I tilted my head to the side, considering. Usually I'd decline, because I found people too stupid to study with, but Marco at least seemed mentally competent.

"Okay," I said after a few moments. "But don't talk a lot. Don't annoy me. Don't act like an idiot."

Marco just smiled.

* * *

 As it turned out, Marco did talk a lot, but not as much as I expected. He filled some of the blanks in conversation with chatter about his other classes, the teachers he liked, and despair over his roommate's incredibly varied sexual activities. ("I swear, some of the things I've caught them doing, it's just...ugh...people are _not meant_ to bend that way." Ah, the precious lamb.)

He even managed to tease a few noncommittal answers out of me about my own life, mainly about my major and coffee choice. He was persistent, I'd give him that.

We worked steadily through our notes; Marco was silent when I really needed him to be, and he pointed out areas of work that I grudgingly admitted could be more concise. We were on the same level knowledge-wise, and although Marco was patient with me when he explained something I wasn't sure of, I couldn't say I was the same with him.

"It's simple, just tack on the voting figures next to each demographic and a few lines about party preferences. It's not hard."

Marco groaned. "I'm sorry, Jean, I'm really not understanding this. I think I'll get another coffee and see if it helps stimulate my brain cells." He zipped open the front compartment of his bag, presumably for his money. "Do you want anything to drink? You've finished yours."

I looked at my cup, startled, and sure enough it was empty. I hadn't noticed that I'd finished it; I must have been more involved in revising with Marco than I'd thought.

"Have you got the time?" I asked, rooting through my pockets for my phone. Marco reached his before I did and checked the screen. "It's twenty past six."

Shit. I'd only meant to stay another ten minutes after Sasha and Connie left. We'd been working for the best part of an hour. "I've got to go," I said, picking up my books from the two tables Marco and I had pushed together.

"What is it?" Marco asked. When he turned fully to face me, I could see he'd left an ink smudge on his cheek.

"I'm gonna be late for games night, it's at mine this time so I need to pick up food. Preferably as unhealthy as possible." I wasn't too sure how many of the guys were coming round, so it was always better to buy in bulk, especially if Reiner was over. The amount he could put away was scary. I pulled finished putting my books in my bag and pulled one strap over my shoulder as I stood up.

"You know, surprisingly I didn't have a shit time studying with you."

Marco rolled his eyes, but still appeared amused. "Wow, thanks so much. You're just bowling me over with praise."

I smirked a bit more, curling my hand around my bag strap. "I'll see you around, yeah?"

Marco nodded and gave me a little wave as I turned to leave. I snorted. The guy was a dork for sure, but still, having him for company wasn't too bad.

* * *

  

_Marco_

I was early to my Thursday-morning Government class, although I didn't know why I'd made an effort. Professor Pixis was usually late to class himself, but he was a good teacher, despite the ever-present bottle of Jack Daniels on his desk.

There were only a few people in the lecture hall when I started taking my books out, and I was absent-mindedly drumming my pen between my fingers when I felt a thump on the desk next to me: Jean Kirschtein, wearing a plaid button-up open over a faded T-shirt. He sat down and began drawing books from the bag he had parked on the desk.

"Hey!" I said. I hadn't seen Jean since meeting him in Garrison a few days ago, but I'd wondered a few times since then whether we'd talk during our shared class. I hadn't paid much attention to him before, other than thinking _nice hair, grumpy face, good ass_ , but I'd enjoyed our studying session. Jean was funny, sometimes without meaning to be, and smart, although I was afraid I had irritated him whenever I'd needed clarification on something.

Jean raised his eyebrows in greeting. "It's too fucking early," he muttered before pressing a hand over his eyes.

I snickered at his bleary face, then an idea hit me and I reached down into my own bag. I pulled out my special morning-class thermos and cleared my throat. The gaps between Jean's fingers widened a little so that his eyes were just visible.

"Uh, do you want some coffee? I haven't poisoned it or anything, I swear."

Jean's hand dropped entirely from his face. "Seriously?"

I proffered the thermos a little more forcefully and with a long groan Jean snatched it and pulled off the top, taking a deep drink. When he screwed the top back on he handed it back with what I thought must be his version of a grateful expression.

He eyed the thermos as I put it back in his bag. "You take your coffee too sweet."

"Maybe you take your coffee too black."

Jean looked sharply at me, scrutinising, and I innocently batted my eyelashes at him a couple of times. Jean's lips turned up. "Touché. But really, thanks for the coffee. I swear I would have passed out without it. You're like, Jesus. No, wait, freckled Jesus." Jean looked pleased with the title. "You're a freckled Jesus."

Jean's early-morning incoherence kept me grinning. "I'm thinking maybe someone did slip something in my coffee. Or do you normally act this high?"

"Fuck you. It's 10 A.M., I should be asleep right now. I was up most the night with Connie trying to beat me on Smash Bros."

I was reminded of the tail end of their conversation on Tuesday. "How did that game night of yours turn out?"

Jean scoffed. "I would've thrashed Eren but the little shit brought Armin. Armin's a genius, we've tried to stop him from playing tactics games with us but he always manages to sneak back in."

"Armin? Are you talking about Armin Arlert?"

"Yeah, do you know him?"

"Mm-hm. We have a few Biology classes together. He's amazing, Dr. Zoe loves him."

"Like I said, genius. He's a decent guy. Even if he does have Jaeger as a best friend."

More people had filed into the room and were followed by Pixis, so we gave each other a half-rueful look acknowledging the end of the conversation.

When the lesson started it focused mainly on the test next week, and since Jean and had already covered a lot of that, I blanked out the lecture and rested my head on top of my folded arms.

I was daydreaming (something about the Phish Food ice cream in my mini fridge) when I heard a very light snore. I turned to Jean; he was completely zonked out, eyes closed and mouth slightly open, chin rested on his fist. Nobody else seemed to have noticed.

I grinned to myself. Usually I'd be the one asleep in Government, but it looked like the coffee hadn't been enough to keep Jean awake. I would feel bad if I continued to let him sleep and Pixis caught him out, but that didn't mean I had to be _nice_ about waking him up.

We were near the back of the classroom with only a small amount of people sitting around us, so I felt reasonably confident in what I was about to do. The space between our desks wasn't big and so I only had to lean forward a little to tug at the hand that propped up Jean's head.

"Jean," I whispered quietly. "Jeaaan..."

I tugged a little more and Jean's elbow suddenly gave way, causing his head to drop heavily, his chin smacking against the desk with a dull thud. A few people looked curiously at us as Jean's eyes snapped open, blinking rapidly while he winced and felt his chin. The other students soon redirected their attention back to Pixis, but I saw Jean gradually become aware of my huge grin.

"That was you?!" Jean hissed.

"Who, _me_?" I fluttered my fingers to my chest. "I would never do such a thing."

Jean stared at me incredulously for a few beats of silence before he turned his attention back to probing the sensitive area under his jaw.

I waited for Jean to be sufficiently distracted before I leaned over close to his face and whispered "Freckled Jesus is always watching."

Jean's head shot up and he looked at me, fingers faltering where they were placed against his chin. Our eye contact held for a few seconds until I felt my shoulders begin to hitch and I saw Jean's lips twitch as his body started shaking. Soon enough we were in silent paroxysms of laughter, Jean soundlessly beating one hand against the desk with an arm thrown across his face, while I had to bite my fist to keep from laughing out loud.

We were getting some odd looks, but I didn't think much of them, and apparently neither did Jean.

"Oh my God," Jean eventually whispered. "I don't even know why that was funny."

I just shrugged as I wiped tears from my eyes. My stomach hurt, but in the best kind of way.

"Hey," Jean said, leaning forwards on his forearm. "There's a thing at my place tomorrow night - it's only going to be a few people, Connie promised twenty max. You should come."

It didn't take long for me to decide. I was as on top of schoolwork as a pre-med student could be, and besides, I hadn't been out in a while. I always liked meeting new people.

"Sure," I replied. "Sounds like fun."

"Awesome," Jean told me, foregoing his usual cocky smirk for a smile showing his teeth. He seemed to catch himself at my knowing expression. "I mean, yeah. Sure."

I turned my head away so my grin wouldn't be obvious. Jean Kirschtein really wasn't as hard to read as he'd like to think.

"Can I have your number then, so you can text me the address?" I dug around in my bag, using the distraction to better compose my features, and passed my phone to Jean.

I tapped my hand against the desk while Jean keyed in his information, and just shook my head when I was handed back my phone and saw that Jean had saved himself as 'Best person, best hair, best abs.'

"Shut up," Jean told me, noticing my expression.

"I didn't say anything," I said, raising my hands defensively, but I was smiling as I did.

We were leaving class - Jean to go catch some sleep, me to Chemistry - when I realised that the design on his worn T-shirt was the cover of a Rolling Stones album.

"You're a fan?" I asked, pointing to his chest.

He looked down and his face cleared when he saw I was talking about his shirt.

"Definitely," he said as we exited the classroom door, heading into the throng of students in the corridor. "I've got all their LPs."

"Nice," I said appreciatively. "What's your fav-"

"I'm actually heading out here," Jean interrupted, nodding his head to the door that would lead him outside to campus housing. He did, however, look vaguely apologetic.

"That's fine," I hastily told him, trying to cover up my disappointment. It would have been great to discuss music with someone else, which I hadn't done in a while, but I wasn't about to keep the poor guy from some well-needed sleep.

He put one foot through the doorway then looked back at me. "I'll text you the details for Friday later on, okay?"

I gave him a thumbs-up as he left. _Jeez, Marco_ , I thought once I'd turned around to head to my Chemistry class. _Double thumbs-up. That really screams 'I'm a balanced and well-rounded person.'_

My phone buzzed in my pocket and when I checked my screen, there was one a text from Jean's number.

**From Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**Let's get real tho gimme shelter is 1 of the best songs of all time**

Grinning, I pulled up my keypad to type a reply.

* * *

The Rolling Stones text turned into a full blown competition to see who could message as many capslocked lyrics as possible. I had to put my phone away in Chemistry when I got too many dirty looks for laughing out loud at Jean's ' **IT'S MY LIFE, IT'S NOW OR NEVER. I. AIN'T. GONNA. LIVE. FOREVER**.' This was accompanied by a selfie of him with an exaggerated duck face and rock-on hand sign.

We texted fairly regularly after that: in the library I sent Jean a picture of my mound of textbooks with my terrified face peeking out at the corner, he replied with **haha suck it med student**.

This was followed a few seconds later with a photo of his own similarly stacked pile of books.

**From **Best person, best hair, best abs** : **   
**Yeah but rlly i feel your pain**

**To **Best person, best hair, best abs** :**   
**You wouldn't happen to know anything about hypertension leading to a myocardial infarction, would you?**

**From **Best person, best hair, best abs** :**   
**What**

**To **Best person, best hair, best abs** :**   
**Haha, don't worry - it's just a heart attack**

**From **Best person, best hair, best abs** :**   
**I hope you won't say that to your patints, you might get punched**

**From **Best person, best hair, best abs:  
**** **Hey tmmrw night why don't you diagnose everyone at the party with diseases**

 **From **Best person, best hair, best abs:  
**** **It'll be real funny**

"What are you laughing about?"

Thomas dropped into the seat beside mine, unhooking his headphones from his ears.

I waved my phone. "Just texting someone."

Thomas then engaged me in a conversation about a shared class, and we then decided to grab dinner together, so by the time I got back to my place it was eleven and I still hadn't texted Jean back.

I wandered through to my bedroom (my roommate wasn't in yet) and flipped out my phone; there was one new text.

 **From **Best person, best hair, best abs:  
**** **Imagine telling sasha she has this throat infection and she can't eat till she's got treatment c'mon don't pass up on this chance**

I didn't look at it again while I got ready for bed, and once I was under the sheets with the lights turned off I sent a message.

 **To **Best person, best hair, best abs:  
**** **Imagine me showing Sasha these texts, imagine Sasha getting angry, imagine Sasha coming after you**

I dropped the phone onto my bedside table, not expecting a reply until morning, but not five minutes later I heard a buzz and fished a hand out from under the covers to pick it up.

 **From **Best person, best hair, best abs:  
**** **NO DON'T PLEASE NOT THAT**

I smiled and placed it back on my table.

* * *

 

_Jean_

On Friday night I was in a good mood. The paper I'd gotten back that day had scored higher than Jaeger's, I'd just beaten Connie at Guitar Hero, and Daft Punk was playing in the kitchen while I had a beer clasped in one hand. Yeah, life was good.

The place I shared with Connie was average size: a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living room, but it held everyone fairly comfortably. There were around fifteen of our friends present, and we were expecting some more. Nobody was opting to drink heavily, which I was actually happy about. I really didn't want to have to introduce Marco to the rest of my friends in the middle of one of our wild parties - Marco would probably run away screaming from all the crazy, leaving a trail of freckles behind him.

We'd texted a few times today but we were both so caught up in classes we hadn't been able to say much. Feeling buoyed up by the thought of seeing Marco face-to-face later I trailed into the kitchen and was slapped on the back by Ymir in way of greeting.

"Ymir, murderous as always," I nodded to the girl, who looked as if she'd received a compliment. "Nice to see you too, Krista."

The angelic blonde whose shoulders Ymir had slung an arm around dimpled at me.

"Hi Jean. You look happy."

"You do," Ymir agreed. "Been getting any lately?"

I nearly spat out the glass of water I'd poured for myself. Nobody could say Ymir held back. " _What_?"

"You've got that 'I'm-fucking-someone' look." She squinted. "Or is it the 'I'm-being-fucked' look?"

Both she and Krista looked speculatively at me as I sputtered, turning violently red.

"I think it's actually a look of...anticipation," Krista finally said, resting her head against her girlfriend's side.

"Ah," Ymir said, looking proud. "That's right. Who're you doing, Jean? Or who're you getting done by? Leaning towards a particular side of the bisexual spectrum these days?"

"I always thought he looked like a bottom," Krista said, considering me with her wide blue eyes. Clearly Ymir was having a bad influence on her.

"You guys are being genuinely terrifying, so I'm going to leave," I said, holding up my hands to the two girls. I backed out of the kitchen, only to hit something and whirl around. Connie was there, leaning on the wall with a look of glee on his face. There was no escape from the madness. "That was a delightful exchange. Who's the lucky gal slash guy?"

"Nobody. Ymir's being a creep."

Connie eyed me in a way I was all too familiar with. "You _have_ been looking kinda...upbeat these past few days. Sure you're not involved with someone? Or is it one of those mutual beneficial no-feelings things?"

"I AM NOT FUCKING OR GETTING FUCKED BY ANYBODY, OK?!" I exclaimed, feeling colour rising in my cheeks again.

Reiner, who was walking past, patted my shoulder sympathetically. "Sucks for you, dude."

"Adequate point," Connie said after the muscular blonde's back. " _Is_ your newfound relationship partner sucking for you? These are the important questions, bro."

"Screw you," I muttered, pushing past my roommate, who cackled and went in to join Ymir and Krista.

I found myself joining Reiner, who was sitting on the living room couch watching grimly as Thomas made painful attempts to flirt with Sasha's roommate. "Any idea where the others are?"

"Eren, Armin and Mikasa got here a minute ago, but Jaeger took too many Jaegerbombs. Mikasa and Armin are trying to talk him down from starting up a fight club. I gave him a few blankets."

Reiner sounded faintly put out; whether it was disapproval of Eren's inability to handle his drink or disappointment that there wouldn't be a local branch of fight club, I couldn't say. I was just annoyed Eren had gotten wasted when I wanted to make a good impression on Marco. I guess only one drunk friend was okay; there were lots of others who were sensible enough to appear sane. Speaking of...

"Hey, where's Bertholdt? I don't think I've seen him tonight."

"He's on his way here," Reiner said, taking his phone from his pocket and checking the screen, presumably for a text from his boyfriend. "He's coming with his roommate."

We lapsed into comfortable conversation after that, discussing classes and how Reiner's football scholarship was going. I liked talking to Reiner. He was a sensible guy, but fun too, and he acted a lot of the time like our group's dad. The dad who regularly had spontaneous sex with the other dad and loudly let everyone know about it.

When a knock at the door came, Reiner stood up. "That'll be Bertl."

I tailed behind him as he lead the way to the door, going to perform the obligatory host task of telling Bertholdt's roomie that if he damaged anything I would hunt him down and perform some sort of ritual sacrifice involving his internals.

However, when Bertholdt stepped to the side to greet his boyfriend, I was surprised to see a familiar face.

"Hello, Jean," Marco said brightly, closing the door behind him. "When I was getting ready it turned out that Bertholdt was going too, and then we realised we both knew you and Connie! Small world, isn't it?"

He removed his coat as he spoke, revealing a Vampire Weekend hoodie, and I motioned to where he could drop it on top of the others. I rolled my eyes when Marco made a point of neatly folding it before placing it on the pile.

Bertholdt and Reiner had disappeared into the living room, so Marco and I were left alone in the tiny hall connecting the suite. (I thought I could hear Jaeger in my bedroom talking about the use of a fight club in taking down organised crime, but I hoped Marco wouldn't pick up on it.)

"Want anything to drink?"

"Um, I'm fine for now, thanks."

"Suit yourself."

I leaned against the wall, unsure of what to say now. I'd planned to introduce him to my friends, but they were spread over the place and there was no way in hell I was disturbing the trio in the bedroom with Eren in his state.

"So Sasha, Connie, Armin, Bertholdt...how many people do we actually have in common?"

"You noticed that too, huh? It's weird it's taken two months for our paths to cross." Marco took up a stance at the wall opposite the one I was lounging against. "I know Reiner, he's over at ours quite a bit...and Annie, too."

"Yeah, I know Annie. Not well, but we've hung out. Come on, let's go see if you know anyone else."

Marco followed me to the kitchen, which was fuller than when I had been in it with Ymir and Krista; the two were still there, but they had been joined by Sasha and Connie. Four pairs of eyes looked up when Marco and I entered the room.

"Oh- _ho_ ," Connie said, and I'd never hated him more than in that moment. Although I had a fairly good idea of what Connie was implying, Marco was seemingly unaware of the deviousness that lay in his tone.

"You already know Connie and Sasha," I said loudly. "He's the fucktard, she's the one with the food, et cetera." Sasha toasted me with her bag of popcorn.

"The other two are Krista and Ymir. Krista's an angel, Ymir's the devil incarnate."

"Hello," Marco said, smiling sweetly at them. Krista almost cooed, and even Ymir's generally deadpan expression switched to something a little less scornful. Marco just had that effect on everyone.

"You haven't told us his name," Ymir purred, looking at us with an expression that told me I was in deep shit, even if I wasn't entirely sure of what nature.

"I'm Marco," he said. "Jean's showing me around."

"His body?" Connie supplied as a run-on from Marco's statement. Both Marco and I frowned at him, although mine had less confusion and a lot more of what could be called 'blind anger.'

"I'm not-I'm not sure I understand," Marco said, turning to me for help.

"Oh, Jean will be good at making you understand. _Real_ good," Sasha said, flicking the last piece of her popcorn into her mouth.

"We're leaving," I hissed, opening the door and pushing Marco out.

"I'm glad to have met you, Marco," Krista called after us.

"Later, K1," Ymir shouted, and I only allowed myself a half second of puzzlement over that before I shut the door behind us.

"That was kind of weird," Marco said. His freckles were less discernible in the hallway's soft light; Connie and I had been bitching to each other about getting the bulb replaced for weeks now, but neither of us had gotten round to it. "I mean, I guess I'm kind of used to Sasha and Connie by now, but...yeah."

"Don't pay attention," I said. "They're idiots. Come on, let's go meet the rest of the crazies." The living room's door was directly beside the one to the kitchen, and I pushed it open. My mood had soured from earlier on in the party: something to do with Ymir's sly insinuations had given me a headache and Marco's introduction to my friends hadn't gone the way I'd expected.

Unfortunately, the living room wasn't much better.

There was a group talking on the floor and Thomas and Sasha's roomate were playing video games on the TV, but they faded into obscurity compared to the couple on the couch. Franz and Hannah, who were apparently even drunker than Jaeger, were kissing pretty heavily for two people that had vehemently denied having a romantic relationship only a week ago.

Usually I thought Franz, who was a straight-talking kind of person, was an alright guy. This incident was rapidly lowering him to my list of people in ShitVille.

It was a testament to just how much of a display the two were putting on that I hadn't noticed burly Reiner and his beanpole of a boyfriend sitting on Connie's supersized beanbag. Marco, however, was already over and talking to them in low tones. Nobody seemed to want to disturb the weird atmosphere created by the busy couple.

"The bedroom's still occupied so Bertl and I can't use it," Reiner said to Marco, relaxed with his hand on top of Bertholdt's knee. "We might take off soon. Don't worry," he added with a smirk. "We'll head back to mine. I know how uncomfortable you were last time I stayed the night."

Marco flushed, and I was first touched by pity for him for having experienced what must have been a night from hell, and then: "What the fuck, Reiner, that's _my_ bedroom."

"Yeah," the blonde said, unconcerned, like it was a thing that had happened before ( _oh God oh please no don't let it have happened before)_.

I was about to retaliate when Hannah made a sound of contentment as Franz's hand disappeared up the back of her shirt.

A single bead of sweat formed on Bertholdt's forehead.

"Fuck it, I'm out," I said, throwing up my hands. "This is too much." I turned to leave the room, sticking my middle finger up at Reiner. "You coming, Marco?"

Despite Marco's mildly confused expression I still heard him say his goodbyes to the two boys and hurry to catch up with me at the door to the suite. I knew I should probably act like less of a dick, but I really wasn't in the mood to accommodate someone else.

"You looked kind of crazy back there," Marco said in an unruffled tone, falling into step beside me. "You want me to get you some water or something?"

"They were pissing me off," I said. I slammed the door behind me and set off down the corridor at an angry pace. "I just wanted everyone to be there and act normal for once, not trashing my goddamn bedroom and...whatever the fuck it was Ymir was doing."

"Aw, Jean," Marco said, voice teasing but giving me a genuine smile. "Did you want me to have a good impression of your friends?"

I muttered something unintelligible even to my ears, but at least it was grumpy-sounding. Marco's smile grew wider.

I exhaled long and low; things definitely hadn't gone as smoothly as I'd hoped, but there was still one place I could take Marco to try and salvage what was left of the evening.

* * *

 

_Marco_

We were near the end of the corridor when Jean stopped before a window and pulled the sash up. I squinted at him. "Look, I know you're annoyed, but you really won't solve your problems by jumping to your death."

"It's a fire escape," Jean told me, swinging his leg over the frame, his beat-up red Converse disappearing under the sill. Sure enough, when I peered closer through the glass I could make out distinctive black metal steps. I followed Jean through the gap of the frame and was soon shivering on the fire escape; the cold night air easily cut through my thin hoodie.

"Follow me," Jean said, beginning up the narrow steps. He still sounded annoyed, but less mad than he had when he left the suite. A lot of my initial impressions of Jean were being confirmed the longer I knew him: a great deal of his prickliness was really just a desire not to waste time with idle talk. He was to the point, and I appreciated that.

Rose House wasn't tall, just five floors, and Jean and Connie already lived on the third. It was only a minute before I was pulling myself up over the top of the steps behind Jean. The roof was long, broken up by industrial-looking blocks built for some function I had no idea about (hiding bodies? Signalling to aliens? I may never know) but Jean headed away from them, towards the edge of the roof.

As we approached the edge, my eyes widened. It wasn't a hugely impressive sight, but from our vantage point we could see the tops of the Trost Uni buildings, surrounded by the trees that dotted the campus. Further in the distance shone the city lights of Trost itself. They were too far away to be immediately dazzling, but they did look nice, and I found my eyes following the lines of the taller buildings.

"This is really something," I said. Jean made a sound that might have been reluctant agreement and sat down, crossing one leg over the other. I dropped down beside him and let both of my legs dangle over the edge. I leaned back on my palms and tilted my face to look at Jean. "How did you find this place?"

Jean was looking forward as he replied, his face still tight. "When we moved in Connie and I wanted to see how far the fire escape went. We think we're the only ones that come up here. It's good if you want to be alone or think by yourself or whatever."

He sighed and pushed a hand back through his hair. "It sucks that this night kind of failed, with everyone being assholes. Or punching holes in my wall, _fucking Jaeger_."

I shook my head and buried my face up to my nose into the hoodie in an attempt to stave off the cold. I thought it was sweet that Jean wanted my meeting with his friends to go well. "I think they're nice people. And I had a good time! It was nice to see Sasha and Connie again. And you, of course."

Jean blinked, as if he wasn't sure what to do with that information, and he attempted a shrug and a nod at the same time, resulting in what looked like a giant twitch. I was glad my mouth was covered to hide my grin, but my scrunched-up eyes must have tipped Jean off, because he gave me a suspicious look.

"Anyway, what about your own friends? I haven't heard you mention hanging around with anyone."

I shrugged. "I hang around with different people. Connie and Sasha, Thomas, Nac, Mylius, Mina...Armin and Franz, when he's not, you know..."

"Sucking a girl's face off?" Jean suggested.

I nodded. "Yeah. And sometimes I hang out with Bertholdt and Reiner. I'm friends with them, we're just not really close, I guess. And that's okay! College gives me a lot of work. I'm busy all the time." I flicked my gaze over at Jean again, hoping he wasn't going to think badly of me.

"That's bullshit," Jean said with something approaching anger. "You're annoyingly fucking nice, I mean seriously, it's a bit weird, but there's no way you aren't close to someone."

"I talk to lots of people, I'm not lonely or anything," I admitted truthfully. "It's just hard to properly connect with people with all the work I've got to do, you know..."

Jean was looking right at me, one half of his face illuminated by the campus lights, the other half in shadow. "It's still bullshit."

His jaw set. "You know what? I'm going to be your friend."

I felt my eyebrows pull together. "What?"

"Yeah!" Jean said, folding his arms, resolution entering his already confident voice. "We're going to be friends. I can't let you just be one of those sad guys nobody wants to sit near in Starbucks. We'll do stuff like eat pizza and make fun of Jaeger. I'll beat your ass in Guitar Hero and you can take notes for me in Government! That's what bros do."

I didn't really know how to respond. Jean smiled smugly. "You're welcome."

"And I don't get a say in this?" I asked. "What if I don't want to be friends with you?"

Jean's face dropped; his arms sagged from their tightly folded position. "I-"

"Don't be stupid," I grinned, reaching across and punching Jean's arm. "Of course I want to be friends! I thought we were getting there already, but if you want to make it official, then sure. Am I supposed to swoon or something? Do I need a certificate?"

"I think I'm regretting this already," Jean grumbled. A comfortable silence fell between us as we looked over the side of the building. After a few moments, my gaze travelled back to Jean, aware my two dark eyes would look starkly visible over the collar of my hoodie. "I know you act like a sarcastic asshole a lot of the time, but I think you're a cool person. Sarcastic asshole-ness included."

"Oh my God," Jean said, his face torn between looking pleased or embarrassed.

"That's 'oh my freckled Jesus' to you."

"Oh my _God_ ," Jean said again, this time louder, as he covered his face and started to laugh. I joined in, although it was muffled by my hoodie, and it was a nice moment, the two of us chuckling with the campus' green trees and night lights spread out in front of us.

"Hey," Jean said, straightening up. "There's a 24-hour MacDonalds a few minutes from here, and I'm really starving."

"You don't have any food at your place?"

"Sasha," Jean said. No other explanation was needed.

I nodded in understanding. "Can I just head down to get my wallet out of my jacket?"

Jean shook his head. "Nah, forget about it. This one's on me."

When we climbed to our feet Jean immediately headed over to the fire escape, but I looked back over my shoulder past the edge of the roof. "It's really is a good view," I said aloud.

"You'll get used to it," Jean's voice called back to me. "It won't seem so nice when you're up here and the wind's blowing rain fifty miles an hour into your face so you can't get your cigarette lit."

"You smoke?" I asked, surprised. Jean didn't seem like the type, but I suppose he had that whole punk attitude going on.

He lounged against the fire escape, face neutral. "Yeah, now and again. So?"

"I don't really like smoking," I confessed. I stuck my hands in the hoodie pocket, assuming a nonchalant expression. "But I'll get used to it."

I received an amused smirk before Jean turned away onto the fire escape. I watched the lighter strands of his hair as he carefully made his way down the steps and felt a sudden fondness as he swore violently when a jutting piece of metal scraped his hand.

"Jean," I shouted down, "are you busy this week? Want to come over to mine sometime?"

Jean's head looked up from examining his hand. "Sure, I guess so. Is Tuesday alright?"

I grimaced. "No. On most Tuesdays Reiner makes Bertholdt have a party at ours and then they end up doing it on the couch when all the other guests have left and I'm trying to sleep at 3 A.M."

"That's a...disturbingly vivid mental image. Thank God I always chose not to go to Bertl's get-togethers."

"You chose correctly. So...would Monday be good?"

There was a pause when Jean considered. "Yeah, why the hell not. I'll be there."

"Great!" I exclaimed. "I'm looking forward to it."

I caught a flash of Jean's full unguarded grin when he looked up at me through the fire escape steps. "So am I."

That smile was still in my mind when I grasped onto the metal of the fire escape and began to follow Jean down. There was, I thought, really nothing to liking Jean Kirschtein. Friendship with him...well, it was going to be interesting.

I only had one foot onto a stair when my phone vibrated. I paused awkwardly, managing to extricate it from my back pocket. There were two texts waiting to be read, the first from Sasha.

**From Sasha:**   
**ymir didn't have ur no. so she told me to tell u that ur K1**

...Okay.

The second text was from a number I didn't recognise.

 **yo** **K1 Ymir here**

I frowned. What the hell?

"Jean," I called to him. "Your friends are weird."

"Yeah," he replied, voice fainter from where he had moved further down the fire escape. He was wearing that cocky smile I was growing accustomed to. "And now you're one of them."

 


	2. Incipient

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Totally heterosexual platonic piggybacks, chili, and Levi sass.

_Marco_

I had always been an early riser, which proved unfortunate when I woke up after just four hours sleep.

Jean and I had stayed in MacDonald's past one A.M despite being the only customers there: after Jean had tried my McFlurry he wanted to get one of his own, and then he coerced me into buying a burger, so we had camped out there for about an hour.

Then, of course, I had gotten lost on the way to my dorm after Jean had stopped off at his. In my defence it was really dark, and because I hadn't been to Rose House many times before I wasn't too sure of my way to Sina.

All that culminated in this absurd lack of sleep, which sucked considering this was a Sunday and therefore the day I _should_ be getting rest.

I groaned and rolled over, burying my head in the pillow. However, despite it being early October the sun was fairly bright at this time, and shone through the open curtains directly on my bed.

"Bertholdt, can you close the curtains?" I asked, before remembering that he was at Reiner's.

I flopped back onto my back, the sun hitting me full in the face, and decided that I might as well stay up. Coffee was needed first though. Definitely coffee.

I pulled off the T-shirt and pyjama shorts I dimly remember getting into last night (er, earlier this morning) and decided that my morning shower could wait until coffee. That was how important a caffeine hit was right now. Hot chocolate would do - I had an embarrassingly big sweet tooth - but I wanted something with a little extra bite.

Hoodie and jeans on, I grabbed my wallet, phone and room keys and headed out. The coffee Bertholdt and I kept wouldn't cut it; I was going to head straight for the holy grail of Garrison.

The coffee house was on the edge of campus, just ten minutes from my dorm, and I enjoyed the walk. The brisk air revived me slightly from my sleep-deprived zombie state and it was nice to walk through campus when it was basically deserted at this early morning time.

When I entered Garrison it was as quiet as it ever got; some solo students lounging at tables with their laptops and drinks and a couple of small groups taking up couches. There were no customers waiting at the counter, and when I approached it I was surprised, but pleased, at who I saw there.

"Connie, hey! I forgot you were starting work here."

"So did I," he told me gloomily. His eyes looked red, presumably from the same lack of sleep that I had. "I got a text from my new boss reminding me this morning at, like, six. Half an hour before we open up."

I made a sympathetic noise. I was exhausted even without work, and Connie had probably stayed up later than me, the gathering last night being at his house.

"People only started leaving at two," he said, confirming my thoughts. "I had to kick Franz and Hannah out of the bathroom, they were basically going at it right there."

"Oh yeah," I recalled. "They were pretty...busy on your couch last night."

Connie wrinkled his nose. "Eugh. But hey, I'm happy you stopped by. We don't hang out enough outside of class."

"You're right, I'm really glad I came over too. Sorry that Jean and I cut out, though."

"Nah, that's fine," Connie said, his look of distaste being replaced by something more mischievous. He looked like some kind of trickster imp. "It's good that Jean's found someone else to be friends with. Don't get me wrong, I love the guy, but he's one of the most antisocial pricks I've ever met."

"But you guys are all friends with him," I said, confused.

"Yeah, but we're the exceptions. We put up with him because we like him more than he pisses everyone off. Jean's picky about who he's friends with, and - how do I say this - he's sort of...abrasive? He's really honest, and lots of people don't like that."

"I do," I said, feeling like I should make some kind of defense on Jean's part. I could see why some people maybe wouldn't like him, but it was obvious to me who great a guy he was, past that brash exterior.

"I figured," Connie grinned, returning to that sly grin. "So, you gonna order something or what?"

"Oh right, sorry! Um, I'll have a coffee. Half and half."

"Coming right up," Connie said, turning to the machine behind him. A woman with glasses and light-coloured hair came out the back room and observed Connie's work.

"You'll need to be able to do that faster," she said. "The customer will get impatient."

Connie grunted in response, twisting the strainer impatiently a few times.

"Hi," I said, waving to the woman. "I'm Marco, Connie's friend. I really don't mind waiting."

"You're his friend," she pointed out. "But it's his first day, I'll cut him some slack."

"Thanks, Rico," Connie said half-sarcastically as she headed into the back room. He turned around with my coffee order. "That's my manager," he told me. "She's got a stick up her ass, but she's okay, as far as bosses go. How many sugars?"

Wordlessly, I slid four sachets from the container on the counter top. Connie raised his eyebrows.

"Dude. You're going to get diabetes."

"I'm a med student, I can help myself if it comes to that."

We talked for a couple of minutes until another customer came through the door and I retreated to a table to let Connie do his job. By that time my coffee was cool enough to drink and I sipped on it while I switched on my phone. There were seven unread texts in my inbox.

**From Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**Hey hope you made it home ok text me when you get there**

**From Reiner:**   
**congrats on having a roommate with such a great tongue, seriously. he's a lady on the streets but a freak in the sack**

**From Reiner:**   
**also he wants u to kno that u need to get more milk**

**From Bertl:**   
**I am SO sorry about Reiner, he's still drunk, I'm so sorry**   
**Did he tell you about the milk thing? I just remembered we need more milk, if you can get some that would be great, I'm sorry again!**

**From Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**Really come on are you dead**

**From Mylius:**   
**idk if you're up yet, but want to meet up for lunch today?**

**From Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**CHECK YOUR PHONE BODT**

The last message was sent just a few minutes ago so I answered that one first.

**To Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**Not dead yet, but critically exhausted. Considering hooking an IV coffee drip straight into my arm. How about you? :)**

I was replying in the affirmative to Mylius when a new message from Jean came through.

**From Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**Fina-fucking-lly, I shouldn't even be awake at this time**

**To Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**I'll make it up to you tomorrow :)**

I sent messages to Reiner and Bertholdt, making a mental note to buy milk, and had just started a game of Angry Birds when I felt someone approach my table. I looked up.

Standing beside me was Armin and a boy and girl I'd seen him with but never been introduced to. "Good morning," Armin smiled. He was holding a cup with steam curling from it. "Connie said you were at his last night, but I didn't see you."

"Oh, I wasn't there long. Jean and I left after about twenty minutes."

I gestured for him and his friends to sit at my table. Armin sat to my left while the boy took the seat across from me, the girl with the red scarf to my right.

"I was in the bedroom," Armin said, giving the brown-haired boy a look. "Eren indulged a bit too much, and Mikasa and I were looking after him."

The boy ducked his head with a rueful expression. "My head's killing me," he admitted. I noticed he clutched a water bottle while the other two had Garrison cups. A name swam to the surface of my mind.

"Eren Jaeger?"

He glanced up, green eyes curious. "That's me."

"Right. Jean's just mentioned you a few times."

Eren scoffed, in a way similar to Jean's cocky exclamation. Now that I looked at the boy Jean had insulted, I noticed similarities between them. Not really in their physical features, but in the way they carried themselves; intense eyes and fierce expressions. I could see why they butted heads. "What the fuck is Kirschtein saying about me now?"

"What Eren means to say," the girl began quietly, "is that it's good to meet you. I'm Mikasa Ackerman, and you obviously already know Armin. It would only be polite for us to ask for your name, wouldn't it, Eren?" She looked at him as she said this, and it was then that I heard the steel in her voice.

"Yeah," Eren said. "What're you called?"

He winced, and I had the feeling that Mikasa had just kicked him under the table. "I mean, I would like to know your name and I'm pleased to meet you." He turned to Mikasa. "Happy?"

She nodded once and sipped from her drink. Although they didn't look alike, there was no way they could be anything but siblings.

"I'm Marco. It's good to meet you, too. Armin's talked about you as well." Armin gave them a fond look and a what-do-you-expect shrug at their exasperated gazes.

"Are you two related, then?"

Mikasa and Eren looked at each other, the shared expression of two people who were asked that question constantly.

"Yes," Mikasa replied. "I'm his sister. Adopted, of course."

"It's easy for me to recognise brothers and sisters," I told her. "I have five of my own."

Armin exclaimed. "Wow, that's a lot. I didn't know your family was that big."

"Yep. Jinae's not close enough for me to visit regularly, so I miss them, but sometimes it's good to not be in a house that's crazy all the time." Growing up with the noisy, chaotic family I had meant that there was always at least one friend around, someone practicing an instrument, and Dad trying to build something in the backyard. I wouldn't change them for the world, but I definitely appreciated having more breathing space in college.

"I understand," Armin said, nodding.

"You have siblings?"

"No, but I grew up with Eren."

Mikasa giggled quietly and Eren gave his friend a good-natured scowl. "So, Jinae, huh?" he said, addressing me. "We're the other direction, from Shiganshina."

I hadn't been to Shiganshina, but I knew it was a small town, quite rural.

"We grew up together," Armin explained. "We've known Jean, Connie and Sasha for a while too."

I felt puzzled. "I thought these three came from here? Trost, I mean. That's what Jean told me."

"They did, but our schools were athletics rivals," Eren said, leaning back on his chair. "So we were always kind of aware of each other. Then Jean and I were on our football teams and we saw each other a lot more."

Mikasa and Armin both made faces. "Matches were difficult when they played," Armin told me. "The amount of times they mashed each other's face into the field, I'm surprised both of them are alive."

"Sasha knew me from gymnastics and track, so she sat with us when they played," Mikasa added. "And we watched Connie hold Jean back from acting even more stupid. It was unfortunate one of us couldn't do the same for Eren."

"Well, Shiganshina won in senior year," Eren said unabashedly. "So I came out on top in high school. Jean still isn't over it."

Armin and Mikasa exchanged long-suffering looks before Armin then bent his head to check his watch.

"We'll have to leave soon if we want to get there on time," Armin said, lifting the shoulder bag he had with him. "Sorry, Marco," he apologised. "We have Geography in a few minutes, so we'll have to go."

I looked at the screen on my phone and was surprised to see it was already ten. "Of course, that's fine. It was nice to meet you guys!" I told Eren and Mikasa as they stood up.

"Yeah, you too," Eren told me. "Though I've got no clue why you're hanging out with Jean."

"Let's go," Armin sighed, pushing at his friend. Mikasa gave me a small smile and led their way out of the coffee house, which had filled up in the time I'd been there. I watched the trio leave and then picked up my phone to send a text.

**To Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**Just met Mikasa and Eren with Armin. They're really nice!**

He replied not five minutes later.

**From Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**Mikasa's great but eren is the worst kind of demonspawn. DON'T TRUST HIM**

**To Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**They said they've known you for a while**

**From Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**Yeah since like 7th grade i think? Jaeger and me were always on opposing teams**

**From Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**And he never liked me cause i fancied mikasa**

Now _that_ surprised me. I leaned back in my seat, eyes fixed on my phone. Jean liked Mikasa?

**To Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**You like Mikasa??**

**From Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**Nah but I used to. She was super smart alrite and she did gymastics and track and karate she's fuckin badass**

**From Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**But then jaeger found out and hated me for it but i got over her eventually**

**To Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**Ah, OK :)**

**From Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**But eren's always been a dick about it and because i was better than him at everything. Worst day of my life was when i found out he was doing the same course at the same college as me**

**To Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**You guys are pretty intense about each other. Are you sure it was Mikasa you fancied? ;)**

**From Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**I hate you**

**To Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**I'll make dinner tomorrow...**

**From Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**Ok but it better be good**

**To Best person, best hair, best abs:**   
**I'll do my best! :D**

I ducked out from the conversation then, giving my fingers a rest from typing. In a couple of hours Mylius and I were having lunch, and then (after buying Bertholdt's milk) I'd hopefully come up with an idea for what Jean and I could have to eat when he came over tomorrow.

What if he was really picky about his food? What if he was allergic to something and I didn't know and I killed him?

Oh God, I thought, lightly thudding my head down on the table. I was in for one stressful day.

* * *

 

 

_Jean_

I got the text from Marco when I was halfway to the gym. I'd already messaged him this morning when he finally let me know he wasn't dead, but after that I'd gone to sleep for an hour before I woke up and decided to head to the gym. The climbing wall was my usual destination, but it was closed for repairs, so I'd settle with the regular ol' treadmill. Reiner usually worked out on Sundays, so at least we'd be able to meet up.

I didn't know how to feel about Marco buddying up with Armin, Mikasa and Eren; I liked the first two, but anyone who knew Eren and I knew how much we pissed each other off, even if we were (tentatively) friends now.

My phone buzzed twice in my pocket and I flipped it out, expecting texts from Marco. However, my inbox was empty and I had a notification telling me that people had posted on the group chat we'd set up last month. As I watched, my phone buzzed again and a second notification informed me of a new message.

I paused with my finger over the chat icon - Connie was always sending Vines with the caption 'WE SHOULD TOTALLY DO THIS' - but after a moment of hesitation I clicked on it.

I really wished I hadn't.

**from: ymirs**

oh my god bets on how long its gonna take jean to blow the new kid

**from: likeabraus**

have you seen how he looked at him?!! p sure theyre doing it already

**from: jaegermeister**

nah. Kirschtein doesnt have the balls to act on it

**from: JKirschteining**

you do realise this is on the group chat assholes

**from: JKirschteining**

and we're just friends ffs

**from: conniesprings**

(yells from the rooftops) DENIAL

**from: JKirschteining**

shut up and fuck off don't you have work

**from: likeabraus**

ooh getting flustered

**from: jaegermeister**

gettin horny more like

**from: putyourleftarmin**

Guys, leave Jean alone.

**from: conniesprings**

yeah so marco can get at him YOOOOOOOO

I exited from the chat, cursing as I did so. A girl passing me gave me a weirded-out look and I scowled at her. How could I help it if my friends were such freaks?

I was walking for another minute before my phone buzzed again. I whipped it out, ready to bring down hellfire etc. on whoever had made a new entry in the chat when I saw it was a text from Eren.

**From: Suicidal Idiot**   
**Everyones just kidding about you + marco you know. we all like him though**

**From: Suicidal Idiot**   
**We know you 2 aren't together its just weird to see you be so friendly to someone else.**

**To: Suicidal Idiot**   
**Wow showing signs of intelligence there jaeger, keep up the good work**

**From: Suicidal Idiot**   
**Shithead**

**To: Suicidal Idiot**   
**Dick**

**From: Suicidal Idiot**   
**Asshole**

**To: Suicidal Idiot**   
**Scummy s.o.b**

**From: Suicidal Idiot**   
**Horseface**

**To: Suicidal Idiot**   
**Reckless bastard**

**From: Suicidal Idiot**   
**So what you doing**

**To: Suicidal Idiot**   
**Gym, you?**

**From: Suicidal Idiot**   
**Fencing lesson**

**To: Suicidal Idiot**   
**You're so fucking weird jaeger**

By then I was at the doors to the college gym, and I pocketed my phone as I entered the building, glancing down to get out my membership card - and walked straight into a hard chest.

I looked up, expecting my eyes to tail way, way, way to Everest heights so I could meet the glare of whatever 'roided-up jock I'd bumped into, but I ended up staring about seven inches down. It still felt like someone was towering over me.

"Kirschtein." The impassive (and I'll admit it, terrifying) gaze of my Criminal Law professor fixed on mine. "Mind mentioning why the hell you're still so close to me?"

"S-s-sorry," I said, stumbling backwards a few paces. Professor Ackerman was wearing jogging bottoms, a grey unzipped hoodie and a tight white T-shirt that showed, yep, that he was seriously ripped. The end strands of his hair that fell into his face were wet, presumably from a shower.

"Watch your feet next time," he said in the deadpan way of his. "Remember I'm the one grading you."

I gaped at him before collecting myself. "Of course. Sir."

He stared at me for another full five seconds then walked past me out the door. I took some time of my own to convince myself I hadn't been killed and then made my way to the locker rooms, scanning my card at the door as I did so. Luckily, no-one had been around to witness my momentary lack of composure.

As expected, I found Reiner in the gym at his beloved weights corner.

"You look strange," he said, lifting an alarmingly big bar weight above his head, arm muscles straining.

"Run-in with a teacher," I muttered, reaching for some decidedly smaller weights of my own. "Professor Ackerman."

"Oh yeah, he's badass. He teaches some sports class at this time, so that's probably where he's going to."

"Just as long as it's away from me," I snorted.

We lifted in silence for a while. And then:

"Hey, so what's this chat I saw about you and Marco?"

I nearly hit myself in the face with the weight. "Not you too."

Reiner just laughed.

The rest of Sunday was uneventful - after the gym Reiner and I played pool at a local bar, and in the evening I caught up on an Art assignment that was due soon. Messages on the group chat were limited to a conversation between Connie and Armin about the physical possibilities of having an abseiling competition off the side of Rose House.

Marco and I started texting about arrangements for tomorrow, agreeing that I'd come over at five, but that developed into the classic Ninjas v. Pirates debate (Marco sadly could not be convinced of the superiority of ninjas) that somehow lasted for over an hour.

Completing the sketch took longer than I thought and I dazed through my Monday classes. It was only when I was standing in a Costco trying to decide whether Marco would prefer spicy or cool Doritos that I really began to wake up. In the end I bought them both and made the walk to Sina House, using the directions Marco had sent me.

Sina was one of the smallest dorm housing in Trost University, tucked away in an obscure corner of campus, but it was easily one of the nicest I'd seen; attractive brickwork with stereotypical posh-school ivy climbing up the side.

Inside I passed an impressive rec room and I began to feel faintly put-out that I hadn't been assigned to Sina at the start of the year. The hallways were quiet and I only passed a couple of people on my way to the third floor Marco lived on, at the top of the building.

I double-checked I had the room number right - 712 - and knocked twice. Almost immediately after, the door was pulled open and Marco was beaming at me.

"Hey. Bertholdt's not in right now, so it's just us." He stood aside to let me pass. "I thought we could make something to eat?"

I nodded and thrust the Doritos packets at him. Marco took them and smiled. "You didn't have to bring anything, but thanks. I love Doritos! Actually, that's why Sasha and Connie sat next to me in class on the first day, because I gave her my packet. I think she warmed to me after that."

"Sounds like Sasha," I said, only half paying attention. What I was really studying was the _books_. We were only in the kitchen/den section of the suite, which was open plan unlike mine and Connie's, but it was the surprisingly high number of books that made the real difference.

They stacked up beside the TV and were piled over a side-table I stood beside, tidied into piles like someone was trying to contain them. I even thought I saw some in the kitchen area.

"There's a lot, huh," Marco said ruefully. "I ran out of space in my room so I started storing them out here. Bertl said he didn't mind."

"You have more in your room?" I asked, impressed, turning over a Dickens book on the table.

"You better believe it. Look, follow me..."

Marco led me across the room and pushed open an already half-open door. Again, this bedroom was bigger than the one Connie and I shared, but I couldn't focus on the injustice of unequal dorms when I was staring at books.

What I assumed to be Bertholdt's side of the room was neat, some clothes thrown onto the bed and indie rock posters tacked up. Marco's side was much the same in terms of neatness and band posters, but books were everywhere, stacked up along his wall, spilling double-packed out of his bookcase, just visible from under the bed.

"I read a lot," Marco explained weakly.

"I'll say."

I walked over to examine the bookshelves; I recognised maybe one in four of the titles. "These look heavy. It's a shame you're not an English major, they would've snapped you up quick."

I sensed rather than saw Marco's smile. "Funny you should say that. I was actually really interested in doing Literature at college, but I guess medicine drew me more. I can help more people this way."

I shook my head, still looking at the books. This guy was unreal.

Trailing my eyes over the shelves to Marco's desk, I caught sight of a notebook on his laptop, a pen stuck in it to keep his place.

"You write?" I asked, gesturing towards it. I turned towards Marco to see his reaction; he was blushing a hilarious shade of red.

"Yeah. I've always liked writing, but I don't really get the time to do it, what with all my med classes and everything..." his voice tailed off.

I hoped he didn't think I was some jackass who'd laugh at him for liking to write. "That's cool, man. It sucks you can't do it more though. If you enjoy it so much maybe you should keep at it. No point in giving up on something you like doing."

Marco looked genuinely touched. "Thanks. I'll try to remember that."

I shrugged brusquely, not entirely comfortable with the way Marco was looking at me like I'd done something to be proud of. "Right...if we're going to be eating later, can I put on some music? I like to listen to it, it chills me out."

"Sure! I've got speakers through here." I followed Marco back through to the open plan area (weaving round his stacks of books as I left the room) and he directed to me a table on which a pair of speakers were kept. I hooked my iPod up and put on Vampire Weekend; judging by the hoodie I'd seen Marco wearing, he was a fan.

His face brightened when he heard the opening of _Oxford Comma_. "I really like this band, nice choice! Uh, so, want to start on dinner now? I was thinking we could make some chili, it won't be quick or anything, but it'll taste great. I have all the ingredients."

"Sure. But I'm a subpar cook at best, so..."

"Don't worry," Marco assured me. "I'll help you."

As it turned out, Marco was a pro at making chili: his kitchen was about as small as my own so he was standing close to me when he worked on the ground beef and I was assigned to the relatively easy task of washing kidney beans. By the time _A-Punk_ started playing I was lost in the rhythm of washing and chopping whenever Marco directed me to, and I didn't notice I was tapping my foot until he pointed it out.

"You like this song, huh?"

"Wha-oh, yeah. It's catchy."

I tried to keep the foot-tapping to a minimum after that, not wanting to appear like some eager goof, but once Marco began humming along the music I just kind of forgot about it.

Marco patiently showed me how to break up the beef (I was really used to takeout, okay) and when he was putting it onto simmer the first song in my beloved classic rock album began to play through the speakers.

I noticed Marco deliberately glancing in my direction.

"No," I said, holding up my hands. "Come on, dude. You can't not like Bon Jovi."

"Oh, no!" Marco said. He put down his knife and leaned back on the countertop. "I think you have a really good taste in music. Can I go look at your songs?"

I waved him towards the speakers and watched as he knelt down to flick through my iPod. I was pleased we apparently liked the same sort of music - there were too many people about right now listening to shitty pop. (A big part of me hoped he wouldn't find my rap playlist that only came out at parties.)

"This is a great compilation album," Marco said. "I'd be totally raving out to this every night."

"I'm not one of those sing-along-and-dance-to-music people," I lied. "That's pretty lame."

"That's the best part! And how can't you sing along to '80s rock?"

He tapped my screen a few more times and looked up from my iPod with some wicked glint in his eye I felt like I should be afraid of on principle. "Let's see you not sing along to this."

I scowled. "Whatever it is, I'm not going to."

"You know you want to, Jean." He gave me an all-knowing look, freckled demon Jesus that he was. "You know you do."

I was still scowling when he pressed the screen again and the new song began, but damn, I really couldn't resist a tune as cool as this.

"SHOT THROUGH THE HEART, AND YOU'RE TO BLAME!" we both yelled in unison with the music, then looked at each other and cracked up.

"Thought you said you didn't sing?" he teased.

"I don't," I said stiffly. "Well, not normally. Maybe on occasion."

"Oh, really?" he said. His grin looked way too playful. I had no idea how I could have thought Marco was some sweet innocent guy.

Soon enough, he had me yelling out all the songs with him, jamming round his den. I wasn't going for it all like he was - punching the air and all - but yeah, there was some jumping up and down going on. I knew I should have felt like a fucking dweeb, because I never danced around to music like this (at least, I'd never admit to it out of the privacy of my bedroom) but damn it if I wasn't having fun. Marco was kind of irresistible like that, like a giant black hole of smiles and positivity that was currently rockin' it to _Sweet Child O' Mine_.

"Told you this was fun!" he shouted over the music to me, and I was half-grinning back when his forehead creased.

"Do you smell that..." he began, and then with a look of panic he whirled around to face the kitchen, where we could see thick smoke rising.

" _Shit_ ," I swore, going to turn off the music while Marco ran over to the pot of chili, frantically switching off the stove.

"It's okay," he said, relieved, peering into the pot as he waved away the smoke with one hand. "It's not on fire or anything, just burnt - we must've been dancing for longer than we thought."

"I wasn't dancing-" I protested, but before I could go any further my voice was cut off by a blaring sound.

"What the fuck?" I said, looking around. The klaxon sounded too loud to just be coming from Marco and Bertholdt's rooms.

"That's the fire alarm," Marco groaned. "It's for the whole of Sina. We set the fire alarm off."

We looked at each other. Outside in the hallway there was the sound of voices, doors opening and shutting, as kids made their reluctant way outside.

"Oh God," Marco said, echoing my inner sentiments exactly. "They're going to kill us."

* * *

 

 

As it turned out, the other students didn't attempt to murder us for forcing them to evacuate their dorm and stand outside for the best part of an hour while campus security made sure the building wasn't burning down. A lot of Sina students weren't in when the fire alarm went off, and I didn't think any of them were informed the identity of the person(s) who had burned food and caused the subsequent evacuation.

When everyone was given the all-clear to head back inside, some guy Marco told me was the head of Sina security glowered at us to stay behind. We tried to do so in a discreet nope-we're-not-the-culprits way so the other students wouldn't figure it out, and after a few minutes the guy and a few similarly dressed types came over to us.

"I don't need to tell you what utter idiots you two are," the man fumed. For some reason my eyes became captivated by the sight of his weak goatee and kept straying down to look at it. Marco was more composed than me, standing up straight with his arms clasped behind his back.

"There was no serious damage this time, but who knows what could have happened if you'd left it unattended longer! You kids don't know how dangerous it can be if fires-"

"Hey, Dok."

Goatee man, his sidekicks, Marco and I turned around at the sound of the new voice. I swallowed as I saw who was striding across the grass towards us.

Professor Ackerman held us all in his cool gaze as he approached, his skinny tie not daring to be ruffled by the wind. His eyes skipped across Marco, me, and the members of Sina security.

"I was on my way past and heard there was some disturbance at Sina House. What's the problem?"

Dok, whatever kind of name that was, thrust his chin at us gruffly. He didn't seem pleased by the sudden arrival of Professor Ackerman.

"They burned something they were cooking." He gave us a scornful look again. "Set off the fire alarm. Idiots."

Professor Ackerman turned to us, his grey eyes flashing. "Kirschtein I'm acquainted with. But you are...?"

"Marco Bodt," Marco said, looking earnestly at the adults in front of him. "I'm the one who rooms at Sina. I'll take responsibility for the alarm."

I nearly shook my head in disbelief. Marco still couldn't shake off his politeness, even when we were getting grilled by my scary-ass teacher.

"Rest assured, Bodt, the blame for stupidity falls equally on both your shoulders." He looked at me with what I might say was dry amusement. "This is the second time this week I've run into you, Kirschtein. Don't make me think you're trying to make a habit of this."

"No, of-of course not, Mr. Ackerman," I said, words tripping over themselves.

"Hm. Do try and clean whatever it is you burned up after yourselves. I wouldn't like to consider any student who wishes to pass my class a complete slob."

I managed to stammer out a confirmation and Professor Ackerman, evidently satisfied, turned to leave, directing his head over his shoulder to address Dok.

"I assume you'll be able to finish up with them, Nile. But if you need any further assistance, I can see if I'm able to help."

With that he turned and walked off, striding pretty fast for such a short man. Dok (Nile?) bristled after him.

"So," Dok/Nile finally said, diverting his attention back to the two of us. Beside me I could feel Marco stand up straighter. "I can't refer you for punishment this time, because this is your first warning."

I relaxed, and Dok seemed to notice this, because he turned his evil beady little gaze on me. "But if I so much as catch you scuffing carpet in Sina again, I'm going to have you on house duty so long you'll have to repeat years just to finish it all. Am I clear?"

"Yes, Mr. Dok," Marco said dutifully, and elbowed me when I didn't reply immediately.

"Yeah, sure," I agreed, bored. Dok was hardly intimidating, especially after Professor Ackerman.

"You can go now," he said, still glaring at us, and Marco and I hightailed it outta there before he could change his mind.

* * *

 

 

_Marco_

Really, I was surprised we got off with a warning. When I told Jean this he shrugged.

"He was still focused on Professor Ackerman, I guess," he said. He'd already explained Mr. Ackerman was one of his Law professors. "They seem to have this weird rival thing going on."

We were walking down a street outside campus; we didn't feel like cooking after what we referred to as the Burnt Chili Incident, so we had headed out to get something to eat. The streets of Trost were fairly empty at this time of evening, and we browsed past windows aimlessly.

"I know this place, Sasha's mentioned liking it a few times," Jean said suddenly, stopping in front of a diner on the corner of a street. It wasn't particularly rundown but it wasn't fancy either - the paint on its exterior was peeling but from what I could see of the inside it seemed clean enough. The sign above the door proclaimed it to be the Stohess Dine and Dash.

Jean looked at me. The collar of his jacket was turned up against the breeze. "Want to go in? We haven't found anywhere else."

I agreed; since the diner was so close to campus I would hopefully be able to get back to Sina tonight without the trouble I'd had returning from MacDonald's on Saturday.

Jean pushed open the glass door and I followed him inside; it was kitschy American, with big old-fashioned booths and a long counter at the back of the room where you could sit on bar stools or place your orders.

The diner was only occupied by a few other customers, so Jean and I easily found seats at a booth next to the wall. He slid into one side and I took the opposite, so we were both leaning against the brown leather and facing each other. I reached for the menu first.

"Hey!" I said enthusiastically. "They're serving chili fries! We could share a portion."

Jean's lip curled. "After all that with the chili we just tried to make, and you want to get more?"

"We didn't actually get to eat it," I pointed out. "So why shouldn't we buy some now?"

I locked gazes with him: his chin was set stubbornly, but I really wanted this chili, damn it. I kept my eyes steady on his, both of us unblinking, but I could already feel myself beginning to smile at the absurdity of the situation. From the tenseness around Jean's mouth, I guess he felt the same way.

"Hi there. Are you two ready to - oh, hi guys!"

Jean and I's deadlock was broken by the arrival of our waitress. I looked up at her and started.

"Mina! I didn't know this was the diner you worked at."

"You also didn't know about this place until I told you about it," Jean pointed out dryly. I waved him away.

"Jean, this is-"

"I know Mina," Jean said, nodding at her when she gave him a little wave. "She and Sasha are roommates."

"Oh," I said, surprised. Trost Uni was on the smaller side of average size, but it was still uncanny how many people Jean and I had had in common without us knowing one another.

"So..." Mina began, flipping over a page in her small notepad. "You wanna order?"

I glanced at Jean, who was looking at Mina. "One huge-ass serving of chili fries with two Cokes," he told her, then sent me a look that said 'Are you happy now?'

"That'll be great, Mina," I said, giving Jean a look of my own more along the lines of 'See, you can play nice.' Mina was smiling when I directed my eyes back to her.

"I'll have these out for you soon," she said, still smiling as she flipped her notepad into her pocket and moved away to the kitchen.

Jean was eyeing me when I looked back at him.

"What?" I asked, disconcerted.

"Are you friends with _everybody_?" he asked, sounding suspicious.

"Yes, Jean," I answered in a straight voice. "I am friends with everyone. That guy over by the window. The President. Even the ketchup bottle on our table."

"Dork."

"Says the one who was playing air guitar to Aerosmith."

Jean's jaw opened, closed abruptly and then opened again. "No I wasn't."

I gave him an exaggerated wink and patted his face. "Of course you weren't."

He looked like he was going to swat me away, but his hand changed course mid-flight and went down to the pocket of his leather jacket. He pulled out his phone and tapped the screen. Evidently what he saw didn't please him, because his face twisted sourly.

"Who is it?"

"Ymir," he said, flipping the phone around so I could see the message:

**K1**

"That's strange," I said, remembering the text she'd sent to me on Friday night. "She sent me something like that too-"

"Chili fries!" a light voice announced. Mina put down our Cokes then slid a large heaped plate in front of us, and I think a whine nearly escaped me at the sight of the fries. They looked _good_.

"Keep it in your pants, Bodt," Jean said.

"Like you're any better." I was right. His eyes were slightly glazed over.

"We're hungry," I explained to an amused Mina. "We sort of burned the dinner we were going to eat."

"Sounds reasonable," she said, playing with one of her low black pigtails. "Enjoy the fries. I'll come back when you're finished to see if you want dessert."

"Thanks, Mina," we said to her as she turned away, but most of our attention was already on the fries.

We both reached for them at the same time, and an expression of bliss passed over Jean's face after the first few bites. The fries were amazing.

"Glad we got them now, Jean?" I grinned slyly.

"Fuck off, asshole," he replied, eyes still closed. "I owe Sasha for telling me about this diner."

I murmured my agreement, too busy concentrating on inhaling as many fries as I could while appearing publicly decent.

After a couple of minutes our rate of intake slowed down. Despite the sheer volume of fries on the plate (friendship with the waitress definitely counted for something) we had already made a sizeable dent in them.

The only thing was, when I asked Jean over I didn't just want to hang out; I wanted to get to know him more. I was still touched that he wanted to be friends with me, but still, I thought it was my turn to put in some effort on my part. No better time, I decided. Diners were totally a great place for bonding with people.

So when Jean next reached for his glass of Coke, I grabbed the plate that was sitting on the table in between us and slid it over to myself.

Jean raised his eyebrows as he set his drink down. "Dude, if you wanted more fries you just could have taken them."

"Nuh-uh," I said, shaking my head. "I don't want the fries. I want to play a game."

"...You sound kind of like Jigsaw right now, you know that?"

"Shh. Look, for every fry you eat, how about you tell me one thing about yourself?"

Jean stared. "Like, in a 'what kinks I'm into' kind of way?"

Dammit, Jean. "No! It'd be nice if I got to know you a little better. What do you think?"

I gave him my best wide-eyed pleading face that always worked on my Mom whenever I wanted to play outside for another few minutes. I didn't know if it would work outside family - but yeah, Jean was definitely squirming. _Score one for Marco!_

"Fine. God, you're such a sap. But only if you do it too. It's only fair if it goes both ways."

I smiled, triumphant. "I'll go first, to show you how it's done."

I put a fry in my mouth, chewed it for a few seconds, and swallowed. "My favourite food is raspberry cheesecake."

Jean snorted. "That's it?"

"That's it." I felt like I was coaching a kindergartener. "We can start off with small stuff. Just tell me anything."

Jean plucked up a fry and looked at it dubiously. "Anything?" he asked. I nodded.

"Um - ok, well - my hardcore crush on Mikasa lasted until I was like, sixteen."

I gave him three short claps. "Congratulations. That wasn't so hard, right?"

"Whatever." He pushed the plate back across to me with a smirk. "Your turn, Bodt."

"Hm..." I swirled a fry in chili then held it up, considering before I answered. "When I was younger I wished I didn't have freckles."

Jean's eyes widened in surprise. "You didn't? I like your freckles."

I blushed at that - my freckles had always been a sensitive spot for me - and Jean started to go red in returnn. "Y-you know, you shouldn't have been ashamed of them. There's nothing wrong with freckles."

I cut him off before he could stammer any further. "I get it, Jean. Thanks." I smiled and slid him over the plate.

We continued like that, pushing the plate back and forth and swapping trivial information about ourselves as the sky outside imperceptibly grew darker.

"My Chemical Romance is my favourite band."

"Never really heard them," Jean said, looking unconcerned.

"Oh my God, are you serious?" I felt a weird mix of indignation and pity. "I am so sorry, you've been deprived. They're amazing. I'll make you listen to them sometime."

"Meh."

"I can't believe you. Anyway, you're up next."

He accepted the plate. "My hair grows naturally like this. Everyone's surprised when they learn that."

"Wow. That _is_ surprising - hey, don't flick that at me - uh, let me think. I secretly really think Jane Austen's books are great. Guilty pleasure."

"I like drawing, like a lot, but I don't do it often."

"Why's that?" I asked, interested, accepting another fry from the plate.

Jean shrugged. "Same reason you don't write much, I guess. Don't have the time for it. And it's not really useful. I'm doing law. Not a lot of room for art there."

I didn't push it, but I felt that Jean deserved one important truth for one of his. I hesitated before speaking, but...Jean wouldn't care.

"I'm actually gay. I...don't know if I'd mentioned it before. I guess it's better to get that out there now."

Jean froze, and internally I did too. He hadn't seemed like one of those people who got upset over someone's sexuality, and I was desperately hoping I hadn't been wrong.

"Oh," he said, blinking once. "I hadn't thought - I mean, not that it's bad or anything like that - I just hadn't thought you were, you know. It's great. Dicks and stuff."

I raised my eyebrow at him. "Did you just say 'dicks and stuff'?"

Jean flushed. "No."

"Okay," I said easily, opening my mouth to pop in another fry, happy that we had covered the subject. It was definitely better going into a friendship with the other party comfortable with your sexuality.

The plate was nearly empty. "Your turn."

Jean paused before he answered, seeming to weigh something up before he spoke. "I'm bi. I guess I should get that out there too."

It was my turn to blink. That was almost as surprising as the whole revelation about Jean's hair.

"Don't tell me you have a problem with that, Marco," Jean said, his voice teasing. "I really hope you're not one of those stereotypical homophobic jocks who's gonna take me outside and toss me in a dumpster-"

"Idiot," I grinned, taking another fry. I broke it in half, waiting before my making my next confession. It felt a little embarrassing, and I knew Jean didn't go in for the sappy stuff, but it needed to be said. "I'm having a really good time."

Jean was leaning right back against the booth, one hand draped along the top while he smiled snarkily, but this pose dropped at my words. His smile at me became more...I don't know. Genuine. The side of Jean I didn't think he showed much.

"Me too," he said, and took the last fry.

* * *

 

After consuming the mountain of fries we chose not to have a dessert and split the bill, leaving a big tip for Mina. It was about eight by the time we started making our way back to the dorms. The Trost streets were still quiet, but cars passed us regularly.

The sunset was a burnt orange; I loved this time of year, before Fall got its grip into the weather.

The temperature had dropped since we entered the Stohess Diner and Dash, and I had to tighten my scarf. Jean's jacket collar was still turned up.

"What are your plans for the rest of the week?"

Jean raised his palms in the universal no-idea gesture. "I've got a paper due soon, so I'll have to start on that. A couple of art assignments. Sasha and Connie want to see a movie."

"Sounds more interesting than mine. I'm studying diseases. Yay."

Jean chortled a little. I gave a mental 'aw'; it was odd, but nice, to see him give anything but his sarcastic laugh.

"Better than getting diseases. Holy shit, let me tell you this story, right, so this summer Connie hooked up with a girl, it was a one-time thing and we were like 'no way' because it's _Connie_ and he never does shit like that. So then two days later he started feeling really weird and sick and we were freaking out because we thought he'd gotten an STD or something and then it turned out he just had food poisoning from his grandma's meatloaf."

"And the moral of the story is...?"

"Never eat any of Grandma Springer's meatloaf. Even Sasha doesn't touch that stuff."

"What a beautiful tale."

"Damn right."

We walked on for a few more seconds when Jean sighed long and drawn-out. I looked at him quizzically.

"I'm tired," he said.

"Sorry Jean, but you're a college student," I said, patting his arm consolingly. "You'll just have to suck it up."

"Hmmph."

In a surprisingly fast movement, Jean grabbed my shoulders and swung himself onto my back. Recovering from my initial surprise I adjusted myself to his weight, leaning forwards slightly and grabbing the backs of his knees so he could get a better hold.

I groaned as he tugged on my hair when he was getting himself situated. " _Ouch_."

"Sorry."

"Any particular why you're using me like a climbing frame?"

"Like I said, I'm tired, and why the hell not?" came the unrepentant voice from above me. My first few steps were tentative as I made sure Jean wouldn't slide off, but once I was sure he wouldn't I hit my stride. He was surprisingly light.

"Maybe I could act like a catapult and launch you into your bedroom window," I joked. The few people we were passing on the street were giving us strange looks; two boys in their late teens engaging in a piggyback wasn't a usual sight.

"Don't you dare," Jean said. I could hear the grin in his voice. "Connie'd probably shit himself though, so it'd be worth it."

"Hey," I said in a faux innocent voice. "Let's see if I can run..." I started picking up my pace, approaching what could be a slow jog, although I wouldn't be able to keep it up for long.

"Marcoooo," Jean said in a high-pitched voice, his legs tightening around my torso. "Marco, everything's going too fast, slow down, what if you drop me, MARCO!"

I started laughing and Jean did too, in between gasps of 'Slow _down_ ' and 'I'm too attractive to die.'

"Oh, fine," I said, slowing down into a walk. "But I'm getting the piggyback next time."

"Maybe," Jean said as we turned onto the street that would lead onto campus grounds. He locked his arms more firmly at my neck.

"Can you try that running thing again? It was sorta fun. When there weren't cars around."

"Let's get onto the grass first," I told him. "That way at least if you fly off you're less likely to crack your head open and get blood all over us."

"You're going to be an amazing doctor one day," Jean said, his voice laced with sarcasm. "So caring."

"I try."

* * *

 

 

_Jean_

I was sketching in my room when I got a text from Ymir.

The window was open and I was propped up on the sill, one leg bent to rest my pad on as I drew. The night air was cold, but I really couldn't be fucked closing the window, so I sat there occasionally shivering. I figured my body would get used to the temperature soon enough.

Truth be told, only half my conversation was on the sketch - I was just letting my fingers go where they wanted while I listened to the music playing on my laptop. Marco had been right. My Chemical Romance were badass.

When Ymir's text came I groaned out loud.

**From Ymir:**   
**a K1 cant get it done**

I deleted it as soon as I read it and set my phone to the side. If I ignored her, maybe she would stop being such a creep.

When a new track started I glanced at my laptop; the title was apparently _I'm Not Okay_. It was one of the songs Marco had mentioned liking when we were walking (fine, when he was carrying me) back to our dorms.

When I looked down towards the sketches I'd been doing for the past hour, I had no idea what it was I had drawn. Although I'd had a detour into drawing space robots shooting one another the sketches were mainly of a single face, one I didn't recognise. I'd stopped short of completing them fully, different features missing each time. The same smooth, strong jaw and rounded nose cropped up in all the doodles. I'd shaded in the skin on a few of the sketches, my half-assed attempt at drawing a tan. I couldn't make out a resemblance to anyone I knew - it would be useless for my assignment.

Sighing, I flipped over to start on a new page, but I kept tapping the end of my pencil against the paper, unable to get anything down.

I was still bobbing my head to the music, and I reluctantly admitted to myself that Marco had been right about the band. I was definitely going to have to buy the albums.

Reaching for my phone, which thankfully didn't have any other Ymir-messages, I typed up a text.

**To Marco:**   
**Listening to MCR. You were right. Fuck they're badass**

The reply came less than a minute later, and I couldn't not grin at such a Marco response.

**From Marco:**   
**:DDD**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not American, so please feel free to point out any mistakes in terminology. Jean's MCR awakening was heavily inspired by Johannathemad's fantastic art. Thank you for reading!


	3. Foundations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know next to nothing about American universities/law school, so I've taken most of my knowledge from UK universities. Don't shoot me!  
> I really really love Levi's Squad and a Jean/Sasha/Connie friendship trio can you see that? You probably can.  
> And we all know Jean sings 'The Climb' in his head when we're on the climbing wall what a dork am I right

_Jean_

I shrugged my hands deeper into my pockets as I made my way across campus; Trost was a warm city, but the weather at this time of year was beginning to change. There was a cold breeze in the air today that meant I probably should have worn something thicker than my Green Day T-shirt and leather jacket, but #yolo, #fuckthepolice and all that jazz.

The law building was approaching and I hoped the song I was listening to would finish before I had to enter the lecture hall. The My Chemical Romance albums didn't look like their position on my 'recently played' list was changing soon. I cursed the freckled fuck who had entered my life and turned invaded my music with the kind of emo stuff I thought I'd grown out of by now.

Luckily, the song ended by the time I was going up the stairs to the second-floor hall where my criminal law lectures were held. I liked the class, even though I didn't see the point of me attending it - as soon as I finished law school I was going straight into the cushiest branch of commercial law I could find and make a bomb looking over contracts for multimillion dollar companies. Hell yeah.

When I reached the hall I wiped my Converse on the carpet before I entered. One time Prof Ackerman sent a guy out of class because his sneakers dirtied up the floor, and there was no way I was going to run the risk of that happening a second time.

The class was half-full when I walked in; I started to make my way over to Eren and Mikasa when I saw them in their usual seats, but I bit back a groan when I saw Professor Ackerman at the front of the room talking to his infamously nicknamed Levi's Squad.

So, Professor Ackerman (whose first name is universally known to be Levi, and equally universally known to never be uttered within a few square kilometres of Professor Ackerman himself unless you wanted a swift dismemberment) has this elite group of senior students who show up in underclassmen criminal law lectures from time to time. Because they're his top law students Professor Ackerman has them looking over some of our assignments, offering pointers if we need them and stuff like that. I guess it's training for them as much as it is help for us. They have this habit of calling Professor Ackerman 'Captain' and I didn't know what was up with that, but I definitely wasn't going to ask.

Eren, enthusiastic shit that he is, was always going over to them after they sat in on a class and badgering them with questions, so I knew them fairly well. Because they seem pretty fond of Eren I don't feel totally embarrassed when he drags us over, but it's still annoying when I see they're in a lecture just because I know how long Eren's gonna make us wait with him afterwards.

He looked happy already, grinning down at them from his seat. Petra, strawberry-blonde and the only female in the group, noticed him and waved her hand, her eyes crinkling with a smile. Eren waved back vigorously.

"Dude," I complained, sliding into the seat beside Mikasa. On her other side, Eren was still waving. Mikasa didn't seem bothered, used to his unfailing levels of dork.

Erd, who's the sort of leader, was still talking with Professor Ackerman but Gunther and Auruo turned at Petra's wave. Gunther brought up his own hand, but Auruo affably flipped us off in greeting. He'd always been my favourite of Levi's Squad for a reason.

I was getting my notepad out when I noticed a body to my right and jumped about a foot in my seat. Somehow, Annie was sitting beside me and gave me her usual cool expression when she saw me trying to get my breath back to normal.

"Where the hell did you come from?" I demanded, clutching the pad to my chest.

"She's been here for the past five minutes," Mikasa told me calmly. Annie was equally as expressionless. I sighed, relegating myself to the next hour of being trapped between two walls of stoicism. It didn't bother me that much; Mikasa's been like that as long as I've known her, and I've learned that Annie's aloofness doesn't mean she's a bitch (well, she kind of is a bitch, but in ways that I can be friends with). They're one hell of a lot easier to get on with than Jaeger, who was currently staring avidly at the front of the room waiting for Professor Ackerman to begin. He loves criminal law. If he had a tail, it'd be vibrating him off the seat right now.

I snorted a laugh at the mental image, and Mikasa and Annie both gave me Looks. I cleared my throat and tried to appear more composed. It's times like these when I can actually appreciate Sasha and Connie's own bizarre sense of humour.

Professor Ackerman started the lesson promptly as usual, and we were soon preoccupied with taking notes. There was no chance of slacking off or you'd be out the door faster than dirty sneaker boy, who never did return to class, now I thought about it. I wouldn't be surprised if his roommate had found him with a bottle of Cif jammed in his mouth the next morning. I bit my lip to avoid laughing out loud and earning another Look.

Criminal law lectures always passed fast for me. Although they're hard even I can admit they're interesting, and they were still a part of my grade. I promised my mom I would keep above the ninetieth percentile in my classes...not that I needed to keep my mom happy or anything like that.

At the end of the lesson Professor Ackerman dismissed us (as usual) in the most insulting manner possible - "Finish chapter nineteen before the next lecture, or you might as well die in a bin fire instead of showing up to class. Either way, the less of you little shits I have to deal with, the better," - and I was reading Marco's text about meeting me at the law building while the others put their books away.

I'd just texted him back to wait for me because of the whole tradition of Eren hauling us to talk to Levi's Squad when Professor Ackerman cleared his throat and everyone in the room immediately paused in packing up and looked to him. "I'd like the following students to report to me down here..."

Arms folded, he leaned against the desk as he rattled off names, mine included. I was worried that we were all going to be ragged on about our work or something like that, but I then noticed who all were making their way down to the front: Mikasa, Annie, Eren and I, plus a tightass named Marlowe and a smirking girl I was sure was called Hitch. The others I didn't recognise, but there was about fifteen of us in total.

Professor Ackerman unfolded his arms once we were all sitting in the front row and placed his hands on the desk behind him. Erd and co. were grouped at his side and talking quietly between themselves but silenced when Professor Ackerman began to speak.

"Before I start, don't begin getting the impression you're all special snowflake stars just because I called you here." He spared a brief glace for Eren. "Calm down, Jaeger, you look as if you're about to piss your pants."

Eren ducked his head looking somewhat pacified. Pacified like a baby. A big dumb angry baby.

I grinned at his dimmed expression and Professor Ackerman swung his gaze to me. "I don't know what you're looking so happy for. Last I saw you had just barely avoided burning down a dorm house."

I shrunk a little in my seat and it was Eren's turn to give me a smug look.

"Don't tell me it was you who caused the fire alarm in Sina last week," Annie murmured to me. Shit. I'd forgotten she roomed in Sina.

"Uh, kinda," I whispered back. "It was at Marco and Bertholdt's place. Were you held up because of it?"

"Luckily for you, no," she replied in a low voice.

For someone so short, she was scarier than I'd like be comfortable admitting to. And speaking of short, terrifying people...

"We're now at the time of the academic year that we start holding our undergraduate pre-law debates," Levi told us in his bored tone (did he have any other?). "As the students who decidedly fail the least in my class, you've been selected as the representatives in the freshman debate."

Beside me Eren practically shook with excitement. I entertained myself with the mental image of smacking him round the head with a plank of wood, but A) Mikasa, B) I'd get arrested, and C) Mikasa. _Focus, Kirschtein,_ I commanded myself.

"When will it be held?" said the Marlowe guy at the end of the row. I squinted at him. He had a really shitty haircut, like an ugly Beatle. Or maybe just an ugly beetle. Like Ringo had mated with an earwig. And _Marlowe_ sounded like a stupid rip-off version of _Marco_. I decided right there that I didn't like him.

"It's held on Friday, and don't speak out of turn, Bowlcut," Levi drawled. "You'll all have to deliver your own pitches, the subjects of which you'll pick from a pre-approved list on my page on the law school's website."

Eren picked himself up a bit taller; he probably had Professor Ackerman's page bookmarked since the first day of class. I swore, if he acted like he had any more of a hard-on for our teacher I'd deck him one, Mikasa or no Mikasa. Just then she flicked her slightly narrowed eyes at me, as if she had telepathy tuned into any hurting-Eren-related thoughts. I grinned nervously at her and shrank back a bit in my seat. Yeah, I wasn't going to mess with that.

"If you fail to sufficiently prepare for your pitch or deliver in any way a substandard performance, I'll knock marks off your grade for this semester. This first debate is important, and I'll give you all mock grades at the end of it so you can have an idea of your standard and how to improve for next time."

He quirked an eyebrow at our startled expressions. "I'm your teacher here. I'm not going to fuck around. Get the work done. You're pre-law students now; you can handle drawing up a basic argument in two days. The debate's in Legionnaire's Hall. It starts at seven but we expect you there for six-thirty, no exceptions."

He gave us all a once-over. "Dismissed."

The others began to shuffle up the stairs to the door, but true to form, Eren grabbed Mikasa's hand and hauled her over to Professor Ackerman and his senior students. Annie and I shrugged at each other and followed at an unenthusiastic distance. We were past the point of pretending we didn't know Eren (although that had been funny the first few times we'd pulled it in this class).

When we reached the group Eren was listening attentively to advice for the debate Gunther was telling him. Erd grinned at us and Petra lifted her and Auruo's hands in a conjoined wave. Auruo looked disgruntled but didn't do anything to stop her, giving a nod in our direction.

Professor Ackerman was bent at his immaculate desk picking up papers. As soon as Eren had thanked Gunther for the advice, he bounded into questioning Professor Ackerman on what the best debate topic for him to pick out of the list would be.

"Jaeger, as much as your fervour is impressive for someone from your mediocre-minded age group, I want to get my tea, so please shut your trap and get out of my classroom."

"But sir," Eren said, looking agitated, "I really want to pick the most suitable subject for the debates. Can you give me any advice?"

"Yeah, come on," Erd chuckled. "He wants help, and we know how much you _love_ spending time talking to underclassmen."

"It really wouldn't hurt, Captain. I think talking to some of your students might actually do you some good," Petra said in a faux innocent tone, dimpling.

I smirked. Levi's Squad behaving like a bunch of shits towards their mentor was my favourite part of these after-class meetings. Aside from Eren embarrassing himself, of course.

The professor was staring at us.

"You know what, forget it. You brats are the worst. I don't know why I ever became a teacher. Close the door behind you once you've finished renting out my room as a positive-vibe hippy peace tent."

He folded his papers to his chest and began walking up the stairs. As he was moving away, Erd bounded forward and leaped from a front-row chair onto a desk.

"O Captain, my Captain!" he shouted, arms spread wide and a grin stretched across his face.

Behind him Gunther, Auruo and Petra started cracking up, but us four freshmen just sort of stood there in stunned silence of 'holy shit what the hell's going on.'

Professor Ackerman turned around, inch by inch, his shoulders tense.

He gazed down impassively at our group and slowly raised his middle finger in our direction.

This time all of lost it, bursting into laughter - even Annie and Mikasa looked amused

Professor Ackerman took two steps backwards up the stairs, still facing us with a blank expression and raised finger, then turned around and kept walking.

"I'd say that was successful," Erd said satisfactorily, jumping off the desk. "So, you guys want to talk about your debate session? Don't worry, it's a breeze."

"Take it from the professionals," Auruo told us in his smug manner. "You can write your argument on the morning of the debate itself and still get an A. At least, I did."

Petra punched him on the arm and he winced. "Don't be cocky."

Mikasa pulled a slim notebook out of her shoulder bag and outstretched it towards them. "These are some ideas I had," she said in her composed way. Even now after I hadn't had a crush on her for two years and with the whole Jaegerepathy, I could still catch glimpses of the old attraction I had for her.

"I'm cutting out," I told Eren before he went to join his sister. Already I could hear the senior students making appreciative noises over Mikasa's notes. To be fair, she could probably transfer into their classes and still be getting the highest marks.

"There's stuff I have to do, and I was supposed to meet Freckled Jesus like ten minutes ago, he's probably wondering where-"

Eren made a sound, and I looked sharply at him. He was watching me with an amused face. "You call Marco 'Freckled Jesus'?"

I nodded shortly. What was his problem?

"Dude," Eren said, amused expression sliding into a half-disbelieving one. "That is so gay."

"Fuck _off_ , Jaeger," I scowled, pushing past him on my way to the stairs.

"Bye, Jean!" I heard Petra and Erd call from behind me and I half-called back a "Yeah, yeah," in response.

There were footsteps behind on the stairs; Annie had followed me.

"I've got a class soon," she said. "And my fanboy Eren quota is filled for this week."

"My fanboy Eren quota is filled for this whole month," I told her as we left the room and made our way down the corridor only busy with a few dispersing students. "Hell, my _Eren_ quota is filled for this whole month."

Her lips quirked in the rare genuine smile of hers, one that wasn't usually seen when she didn't have Bertholdt or Reiner by her side. She dropped her hands into the pocket of her slightly oversized hoodie. "So, you're friends with Marco now."

"Yeah, Connie and Sasha introduced us. You already know him, don't you?"

"Mmhm. We've hung out sometimes when I've been over at his and Bertl's. He's a good guy."

I was surprised by Annie speaking so highly of someone, especially when I didn't think she knew Marco all that well. I guess it was just more proof of how the guy was universally likeable. It made me feel a bit warmer towards Annie too, and I when she turned off a different path once we were outside the building, I said 'see you later' to her with more sincerity than I usually put into it.

I guessed Marco would be sitting on a bench in front of the law building, like he had done a few times before when he'd waited for me after a law lecture. Sure enough, when I was halfway down the path a figure holding two coffee cups detached itself from one of the benches as I approached.

"Hey. What's new with you?"

Before answering, Marco gave me a speculative look. "First, three things. One, you're not dressed for the temperature today." He himself was wearing a woolen coat over a thick knit sweater. I opened my mouth to retort but he beat me to it. "Second, I brought you coffee."

He stuck out a hand holding one of the cups and I took it mutely. I didn't know when Marco's kindness had moved from kind of annoying me to actually being endearing, but it had. The cup was still warm, and the label showed it was from Garrison.

"You got me Garrison coffee? Oh, fuck yeah. I needed this," I said, inhaling the rich smell.

"Glad to be of help," Marco smiled. "And three, what was the hold up? Is everything alright?"

"I texted you saying I would be late. It wasn't actually Eren this time; Professor Ackerman was telling us something after the lecture."

Marco winced at the sound of my teacher's name. "Has he mentioned anything about the whole...?"

"Burnt Chili Incident? Nah, not really. He did sort of mention it today, but I think he's pretty much forgotten about it." I hoped.

"So, where were you heading? I'm free for the rest of the day if you want to hang out."

I did want to spend time with Marco - he was great to watch movies with, unlike Sasha and Connie who ate all my food and loudly commented on every single quote, joke and plot point - but the debate Professor Ackerman mentioned had priority until Friday.

"No can do. I've got something I have to work on."

"Hm?" Marco's open face looked genuinely interested. "What is it?"

"We got this debate session sprung on us and now I've got to draw up a whole argument by Friday night." I ran a hand through my lighter top of hair. "I don't have time to hang today. We could grab a pizza or something on the weekend, though."

"It's no problem, I can come with you," Marco said happily.

I gave him a blank look. "You'll come with me to the law library. It's the most boring place on campus. It's literally hell on Earth."

Marco quirked an eyebrow. "I don't think that really works as an analogy - hell and Earth are two distinct realms, so for one to coincide on the other wouldn't correspond with the laws of physics."

"Oh God, I'm friends with the nerdiest guy alive," I said, schooling my face into a horrified expression.

"You love it," Marco grinned, reaching over to mess up my hair as we set off in the direction of the library.

"Fuck, no, get off," I protested, elbowing him in his unfortunately solid midsection. "Jeez, how hard are your abs?" I rubbed my elbow, giving his stomach a scornful look.

"So hard, they're the harder better faster stronger that Daft Punk were talking about."

He winked and this time I placed my face in my hands. "We can't hang out anymore."

Marco's laughter bounced around us.

* * *

 

The law library wasn't big, but it was a good size if you considered it was entirely dedicated to the one subject. Marco and I chose a table towards the back of the library where no-one went because it was where all the law teachers headed to sit. Also because we'd made a big joke of him not actually being a law student and pretended to smuggle him in with his jacket pulled up over his head, so we were hiding from the glares people had given us at the noise we'd created.

There were no teachers or glaring students there at that moment, thank God, so we kicked back with all our books and put our legs up on chairs.

After checking Professor Ackerman's page on my phone I selected a few subjects I thought I could cover fairly well. Marco kept our library table while I browsed the shelves for books and articles I could use.

I picked up a few that looked promising and was heading back to the table when I collided with someone, grabbing my books so they wouldn't topple to the floor.

I had one horrible moment to consider the deja vu of the situation before I met the gaze of Professor Ackerman.

"Oh, shit," I said.

He raised an eyebrow. One of his hands held the papers he'd collected from his desk earlier and the other a mug of tea.

"It seems you're trying to make a habit of this."

"This, sir?" I managed to croak out.

"Pissing me off."

"Ah-sorry. I don't mean to, I swear, I'm just getting stuff for the debate on Friday."

I held up the books I'd had clutched under my arm. I didn't get a reply, just that same cool stare, so I sort of began to edge around him.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"G-going to my table...?"

Damn it, why did I turn into a stammering twelve-year-old girl whenever I was around my teacher? Yeah, he was a hardass, but if Eren could jump around him like a puppy then I sure as shit could talk to him without my voice breaking. I lifted my chin.

"Yes, I'm sitting down at my table. I want to get a head start on the argument I'm going to present at the debate. Sir," I added dutifully.

"Alright. Just don't bother me; I'm checking references in this section, and if you so much breathe in a way that disturbs my work..."

He let the rest of the sentence drop, but it didn't need to be said.

"Understood. I'm just reading, no talking involved, don't worry."

Professor Ackerman was still scrutinising me when someone came round a corner shelf from behind him and nearly bumped into us.

"Sorry!" came a familiar voice. "I didn't see you - oh."

"You've got to be kidding me," Professor Ackerman said, looking between Marco and me. "It's the two of you."

A big part of me wanted to exclaim _Surprise, bitch!_ but I knew that would probably get me thrown through a bookshelf or something, so for once in my life I kept my mouth shut. A lot of that was maybe to do with the fact that Marco was shaking his head at me from behind Levi, evidently having guessed the jist of what was going through my head.

"I don't know if you're following me or this is just an unfortunate set of coincidences, but I actually really don't want to find out," he sighed. "You keep to your area, stay quiet, and for the love of God, don't try and cook anything."

"Haha, nice one," I said weakly.

Professor Ackerman's eyes narrowed at me fractionally, and for a second I panicked that the whole through-a-bookcase deal was about to come true before a mobile phone went off.

My teacher blinked and looked down, taking a thin phone from his suit pocket and checking the screen. He cursed rapidly under his breath and stalked away and I was just able to hear him saying "For the last time, if Bean's escaped again..." before he strode out of earshot.

Marco and I looked at one another. "Saved by the phone," he quipped, and we headed back to our table before Professor Ackerman could swoop down and do something like deliver our souls to the bowels of Hell.

We resumed our seats, Marco sighing as I crossed my feet on top of the table beside ours. I was opening a few of the books I'd picked up when Marco spoke and I looked up to see him watching me. "So what actually made you pick pre-law?"

The question seemed kind of out of the blue, but over the past fortnight Marco had been springing random questions about my life on me, I guess trying to get to know me better. It didn't really bother me. I liked talking about myself.

"I never considered it until junior year of high school. I knew I always wanted to get a successful job, and then I read up about working in law. It generally pays well, and you get to meet lots of different people. It seemed interesting."

"So, nothing to do with helping people?" Marco asked with a wry grin.

"Ha, no. That's your deal for picking your major, not mine. Once I graduate I'm doing commercial law. That's where the money is, and you don't have to deal with all the shit of criminal law."

"What's the difference between commercial and criminal law then?"

"Commercial is drafting regulations for big companies," I explained. "Checking their laws and stuff like that. Criminal law is the flashy typical TV stuff. That involves the defending and prosecuting business. It's a lot harder to get a really well-paying job in criminal law straight from law school."

"So why didn't you pick that?" Marco looked genuinely interested. "That seems like it'd be more interesting than working for some stuffy company. And surely the benefit of helping people with their lives is vastly greater than the fact you get paid less? "

"I hate the thought of working for criminal law," I muttered. This wasn't a topic I liked to cover with other people in detail. "It makes me sick."

Marco's eyes widened. "Why?"

"You have to deal with some of the very worst people in society, and some people who've been seriously damaged by what they've gone through. I don't want to have to face that every day." OK, I was aware I was sounding like a selfish asshole, but who would want to get involved with that every day of your life?

"And then, if you've got a client you know is guilty, and they've admitted to it, you still have to defend them! You can't even go to the police and turn them in if they've killed a kid or raped some girl! What the fuck is up with that!?"

I realised I'd raised my voice to the point of almost shouting, and hunched my shoulders in as I leaned across the table to speak to Marco.

"I couldn't do that. Some people like Jaeger could, but not me. I'm not strong enough. And that's the truth."

"Just because you don't want to-"

I waved him away. "I don't want to talk about it. Come on, we've gotta work."

I didn't want to pursue the subject any further - I'd gone too far in revealing so much of myself in that outburst - and Marco seemed to get that, because after a few seconds he dropped his head back to his notes. We worked steadily; I hadn't asked what Marco was doing, but I presumed it involved one of his hellish med classes.

"How's it going?" he asked after half an hour had passed. He leaned back to stretch his hands over his head and my eyes snagged on the sliver of skin his pulled-up sweater exposed.

I snapped my eyes back up to his. "Uh, it's OK. I'm finding some things I think I can use. What have you been doing?"

Marco looked sheepish. "I should be doing revision for my Organic Chemistry test, but I got caught up writing." I glanced down at the pen he was tapping against the notepad; the page was filled with sentences and crossed-out words.

"Fiction?"

He gave me a small smile. "Yeah. I thought it was about time I got into writing again. I've missed it."

"Come on then," I said, holding out a hand. He looked at me in confusion and I elaborated. "Let me read it."

I let out a cackle at how horrified he looked. "I can't do that, Jean, I don't like people seeing my writing before it's finished."

"What about that creative writing class you're in? You must show your stuff to them."

"Yeah, but that's different, we're all writing-no, don't!"

I'd made an attempt to grab Marco's notepad and he dived across to get it back, resulting in a tugging match across the table. Honestly, I wasn't that bothered about reading his story, I was just enjoying the desperate look on his face and he pulled his notepad back.

We must have got too loud again, because after a few minutes of the back-and-forth tugging and Marco's half-laughing exclaims of "You're such an ass!" a familiar head popped around the corner bookshelf that blocked our tables off from the rest of the library.

Professor Ackerman was glaring at us, a pen tucked behind his ear. "If you idiots want to enact your horny adolescent fantasies, do it in the privacy of your own rooms, not in a place where I'll have to sanitize the tables. _Shut up_."

We whispered apologies and after a further glare his head whipped back around the shelf. Reluctantly I gave the notepad back to Marco.

"I can't believe he thought - look, we'd better quit talking," I mumbled, and flipped through to the last page I had been reading. I wasn't going to give Professor Ackerman any excuses to hand my ass to me.

Marco didn't reply, so I assumed he had returned to writing, but after a minute I felt my mobile vibrate under a pile of papers I'd dumped haphazardly on the table. Feeling Marco watching me, I picked it up, and saw a text from him on the screen.

**From Marco:**  
 **Quitting talking is good and all, but there's this amazing 21st century device called the MOBILE PHONE that does ALL THE TALKING for you! Amazing, isn't it?**

I quickly thumbed back a reply.

**To Marco:**  
 **News just in: you're a fucking dork**

**From Marco:**  
 **I'd rather be a fucking dork than a non-fucking dork, if you get my drift...**

I closed my eyes briefly, as if I could contain the secondhand embarrassment I felt from reading such a dorky message behind my eyelids. I could hear Marco guffawing quietly in front of me. Normally in any burgeoning friendship of mine this would be the point where I would have upped and left to get away from the nerdiness (Sasha and Connie were the only exceptions, the reason being they'd gotten their hooks into me at too young an age to dislodge them), but for some reason Marco Bodt was a strangely irresistible person to stay away from.

Maybe it was the slyly teasing side of his personality under his innocent surface that made me like him so much? He was a good enough person to not care about how blunt I was, but his niceness didn't make him boring.

While I was internally musing, Marco had been typing out another message.

**From Marco:**  
 **My coolness has incapacitated you, hasn't it?**

I rolled my eyes and stuck into replying.

**To Marco:**  
 **Yeah let's call it 'coolness'**

A thought struck me and I hastily sent another message before Marco could.

**To Marco:**  
 **One second i'm gonna add you to our group chat everyone needs to see how lame you are**

I exited from my inbox and clicked on the chat app we used. Marco had briefly mentioned having an account on it, but we hadn't swapped contacts - we were fine just texting, but I thought that if Marco was part of my friends' group chat it would make him, and everyone, feel like he could be more involved with all of us.

"What's your name on here?" I whispered to him.

Marco picked up his own phone. "I'll send you a request. Your name is...?"

"JKirschteining, first two letters all caps."

"I see what you did there. And I'm the nerd?" Marco was grinning as he typed it into his phone.

A few seconds later I got a chat notification and opened it up.

I had one new contact request from mrrobodto.

"I can't believe you," I said under my breath, and accepted the request. "Mr Robodto, oh my God."

Marco immediately sent me a private message and I leaned my elbows on my books as I read the screen, all attempts at work forgotten.

**from: mrrobodto**

Are you sure the others won't mind me being added, if it's just a chat for all of you?

**from: JKirschteining**

you're one of us, of course they're not gonna mind

**from: JKirschteining**

one sec let me just add you

It should have been weird, messaging Marco when there was a foot of space between us, but it felt natural, like a routine that had already become tradition.

I clicked on the 'Include members' button on the chat screen and scrolled down to Marco's name, adding a twelfth person to the chat.

**from: JKirschteining**

k all done there's no escaping now

**from: JKirschteining**

expect sasha to show up at your door with a welcome basket of food

**from: JKirschteining**

but she'll probably have eaten all the food so it'll really just be a basket

**from: mrrobodto**

A welcome basket is better than no welcome basket

**from: JKirschteining**

*ancient chinese proverb

**from: mrrobodto**

Ah yes I am well versed in the art of Chinese proverbs

**from: mrrobodto**

'Do not pisseth off the law teacher, for he shall rend you head to toe in a manner grievious and bat-like'

**from: mrrobodto**

Wait that's Shakespearian not Chinese

**from: JKirschteining**

ancient chinese proverb: don't for fuck's sake leave the chili on

**from: mrrobodto**

Ancient Chinese proverb: Don't let Reiner and Bertholdt in your bedroom

**from: JKirschteining**

asshole i'm trying to forget that

**from: JKirschteining**

ancient chinese proverb: don't let a bro give you a piggyback cause they will nearly end your life

**from: mrrobodto**

ACP: Don't GIVE a bro a piggyback cause they will start crying like an 8-year-old on their first rollercoaster

**from: JKirschteining**

SHUT UP I WASN'T CRYING

**from: JKirschteining**

and who would put an 8 yr old kid on a rollercoaster that's barbaric

**from: mrrobodto**

Oh my God you were that 8 year old weren't you

**from: mrrobodto**

Aw Jean

**from: JKirschteining**

shut your fucking mouth

**from: mrrobodto**

Haha, I'm sorry

**from: mrrobodto**

I'll make it up to you

I set my lips in a line, staring at the phone in my hand. Marco snickered softly then typed another sentence.

**from: mrrobodto**

How about I give you another piggyback once we leave the library?

**from: mrrobodto**

?

**from: JKirschteining**

.....................................

**from: mrrobodto**

I'll take you all the way to wherever you want to go

**from: mrrobodto**

Except not outside of campus, that's too fucking far, but to like your dorm or something

**from: JKirschteining**

.....................

**from: mrrobodto**

I'll buy you more coffee on our way

**from: JKirschteining**

...........

**from: mrrobodto**

I'll let you shout war cries and if anyone asks I'll say they were from me so you won't look like a dork

**from: JKirschteining**

...you got yourself a deal

**from: mrrobodto**

You're going to destroy my back, I hope you know that. The things I do for our friendship...

**from: JKirschteining**

domiaragoto, mr robodto

**from: mrrobodto**

you nerd

* * *

 

Marco ended up giving me a piggyback to the gym once we were finished in the library (with minimal work done on both our parts). He did, however, dump me on the grass outside the gym entrance which I informed him meant he still owed me another piggyback to make up for the abrupt ending.

He only glared at me, panting, and I couldn't really take him seriously; Marco's attempts at anger were about as convincing as a teacup pig's. He headed back to his dorm to eventually get started on Organic Chemistry while I spent a couple of hours on the gym's climbing wall, which was newly refurbished and sexy as hell.

They'd added more holds and a route with a bigger overhang, updated the ropes and harnesses, and given the whole thing a cleaning so that scuff marks weren't the first immediately noticeable features thing you noticed. I nodded to the bald supervisor hanging out at the equipment rack when I entered. He glowered at me, but I wasn't fazed; I kept all my own equipment in my gym locker, so I didn't have to share with sweaty newbies. I strapped in, chalked up my hands, and picked a route that would keep me focused right until the end of the climb.

I started indoor climbing as a high school freshman, and for a few reasons I somehow began to love it in a way I didn't like most things. The first reason was that I wasn't a good team player (football was the extent of me interacting sports-wise with others) and when you're climbing, you literally don't have to talk to anyone, just frown at whatever's asshole's gotten too close to your line. The second was that I was good at it, and I'd always liked the things I was immediately good at. The third was how easily it got me out of my mind.

I'd always been an intense thinker; couple that with the fact I get pissed off easily and a lot of the time I needed to get rid of steam. Running (and jacking off) did the job, but it still allowed room for too much thought.

When you're on a wall, it's repetitive. One hand above the other, find a grip for your foot, haul yourself up, don't slip. Rinse and repeat. It calms me, both the non-thinking side and the burn I get in my muscles. And, of course, it helps you keep a rocking body.

If the climbing wall supervisors weren't looking, and there was enough space, sometimes I'd fuck about a bit, jumping from one section of the wall to another a short distance away using the rope as leverage. I'd gotten better at propelling myself through the air and occasionally I liked to pretend I was an Assassin's Creed-like badass with some bitching grappling hooks.

Then I'd hear a holler of "Kirschtein! Stop screwing around if you don't want a broken neck, you idiot!" and I'd reluctantly go back to the whole regular climbing thing.

This time, I just stuck to reaching the top of the wall. I'd joked around earlier with Marco, which was always fun, but this debate was worrying me more than I let on.

I gritted my teeth, swinging my right foot onto the nearest, but still high-up, hold, and using the momentum to push myself up higher.

I wasn't nervous about speaking in front of people. Jean Kirschtein was not the type of guy to get fazed talking to a crowded room. People were more likely to annoy me than make me worry.

No, I was worrying about me.

This was the first law debate. No matter how much Levi's Squad trivialized it, this was what would solidify in people's memories for our group of students. It was this first public event that would mark out who the ones to watch were, the ones most likely to succeed.

I knew I was good enough. I knew that. Or at least...I hoped.

The next placement of my foot slid off the hold and I gasped, holding myself tight to the wall as I set it down more firmly. I wasn't even three quarters of the way up. That was embarrassing.

More slowly, I re-started my ascent, trying to banish all thoughts but the climb from my head. I had to stop stressing. Or I really needed to get laid.

After my stint on the wall and grabbing a shower I headed back to my suite, gym bag slung over my shoulder, occasionally shoving back the damp hair on my forehead that threatened to drip water onto my phone screen.

Marco had live-messaged me his gradual breakdown as a result of Chemistry and I replied to these first with a few hopefully bolstering messages - reassuring someone had never been my strong suit.

My mom had sent me a text as apparently I had sounded 'distant' on the phone last night. I replied with a short 'I'm fine ma', but knowing her I'd have to phone again soon just to reassure her I wasn't feeling suicidal or developing a fever or something like that.

I was gonna kill Connie for showing my mother how to text.

And speak of the buzzed haired bastard himself, he'd shown up in my inbox right after my mom.

**From Connie:**  
 **hey sasha's comin over tonite**

**From Connie:**  
 **we're havin an oldest buds dinner**

**From Connie:**  
 **be there or be square**

**From Connie:**  
 **i guess u'll be here anyway it being ur place too and all**

**From Connie:**  
 **can u bring popcorn cause we're watching movies afterwards**

**From Connie:**  
 **i got twizzlers and fight club i know how much u love that film so u cant back out of this**

**From Connie:**  
 **sasha says get fries as well**

So of course I ended up making the trek to grab all the different bags of popcorn at Costco that Sasha liked and then to McDonald's to get two servings of fries for each of us. And don't even talk to me about the walk back to Rose looking like an expectant mother with the bag of fries stuffed down the front of my shirt to keep them warm.

It was nearly seven by the time I was unlocking the door to my suite, my best example of Grumpy Cat plastered firmly on my face, when the door opened midway through me turning the key and Sasha reached out and dragged me in.

"Jean, Jean, Jean," she crooned, reaching down my shirt to grab the fries.

I made a garbled sound and pushed her away but she unashamedly yanked the packet from under my leather jacket and cradled them to her.

"And you kept them warm! Aw, you do care."

She pinched my cheek and I flailed away from her hand.

"You better have drinks," I proclaimed, moving into the kitchen to dump the popcorn.

"Who do you think we are?" Connie's voice drifted through to me from the den. Popcorn in bowls, I threw my jacket over a chair, kicked off my shoes and walked through to the living room.

The lights were off, the menu for Fight Club onscreen; they'd waited for me, which I appreciated. Connie and Sasha were on one of the couches and I dropped down in the space they'd left beside them. Sasha let out a comfortable noise and leant against Connie, stretching her legs over mine, and ignored our protestations. She took a bowl of popcorn from me and dumped what was left of her fries in it while Connie and I took our own packets from the table and dug in.

"I walked in on Ymir and Krista making out in the bathrooms at work," Connie began in a way that immediately conveyed he'd wanted to get it off his chest for a good few hours. "I looked away soon as I opened the door but Ymir punched my arm anyway and it's already bruising."

He twisted his upper arm around so we could see the spreading purple patch. Ymir sure clocked him one.

"Am I the only one thinking about what the hell Connie was doing in the girl's toilets?"

"Nope," I agreed, reaching for another handful of popcorn. "I'm just as creeped out as you are."

"I clean the bathrooms!" Connie exclaimed. "I'm not some kind of pervert, jeez. But that's the third time this month; I'm seriously reconsidering my employment options."

"Hey," I said, reminded of a conversation I'd had not too long ago. "Have you ever caught Bertholdt and Reiner in our room? Having...sex?"

Connie laughed, which was totally not the reaction I'd expected. "Ew yeah, I caught them at it once. On your bed, haha."

"I hate you," I informed him. "And everyone we know. Why did we have to choose to hang out with a bunch of shameless exhibitionists?"

"Beats me," Connie shrugged. "The story of my life is basically 'Look maw, I caught two gays!'"

He looked quickly at me. "Shit, sorry that sounded really dickish. You know I'm chill with your bisexual ass."

I gave an unoffended shrug and Sasha looked thoughtful. "That sounded like a come-on. 'Hey, you're bi, and I'm chill with that...let's be chill with that _together_.'"

"Euuuggghhh," Connie and I both groaned, and he mashed his hand into her face, which she promptly bit.

"We are definitely not each other's types," I reminded her over Connie's hisses of "I'm friend not food," as he rubbed at the bite mark. I made a mental note to never, ever start thinking of Connie and Sasha in that way. If we started dating the amount of food of mine they'd eat would leave me hiring out my body for money on the streets. I'm hot though. I could make it work.

"You never know, Jean-bo," Connie said slyly, leaving the bite mark and blowing me a kiss. "I could give you some sugar all night long."

"That was horrifying," I shuddered. "Crap, never say that again."

"Meh, fine with me. I am perfectly comfortable being 100% hetero."

"You're missing out," I informed him. "Bisexuality truly is the best of both worlds." I gave them a languorous wink to let that settle in.

"Spare us," Sasha said, popping another handful of popcorn in her mouth in lieu of Connie's hand. "How was your day, anyway? Except for creepin' on Connie and me."

I made a sour face as I remembered my criminal law class. "I've got a debate presentation thing on Friday night. It blows."

Despite my lack of enthusiasm, Sasha and Connie seemed interested. "Oh, tell us more! Is it a public thing? Can Con and I come?"

"It says it's an open event on the website, so I guess you can come, not that I'd want you to."

"But Jean!" Sasha pouted. "We can't miss our little guy all grown up and doing big boy college things!"

Connie reached across to poke my face before I could slap his hand away. "Yeah, bro, we'll come and cheer you on. Are Eren and Mikasa in it too?"

"Yeah, it's the top fifteen that are doing the debates. Annie's there as well."

"Sweet. We can all go for dinner afterwards."

Sasha nodded her head vigorously in agreement. "Connie's gymnastics practice ends at six, will that give him enough time?"

"Should do, the debates start at seven."

"Great, we'll be there!" Sasha tucked her legs up onto the couch, deliberately bumping Connie's shoulder in the process. "Beer, Jeeves," she commanded through a mouthful of food.

Connie complied, passing us up a few bottles from the floor and pressing the play button on the remote. We wordlessly clinked glasses in our three-way cheers as the film began.

Damn, I forgot how much I loved Fight Club, and I was all for Chuck Palahniuk, but it was so much better than the book. By the halfway point I was howling 'aw shit' along with the two others. We'd started a drinking game in which every time a beat down occurred onscreen we'd take a drink, so by the time _that_ plot twist came towards the end we were pretty buzzed.

Connie's hand had been resting against Sasha's ponytail for the past half hour and she had a small smile on her face. Neither of them had mentioned it, and I didn't want to be the one to bring up whatever it was they were skirting around, so I didn't mention it either, as much as the jackass part of my brain was saying _why the hell not_.

Once the end credits were rolling Sasha had finished all her popcorn and fries as well as most of ours, so she wandered through to the kitchen to get something else to eat.

While Connie slid over to our DVD collection and began hunting through it for our next film I took the opportunity to check my phone. I hadn't talked to Marco in a couple of hours and he'd texted me when I was watching the film.

**From Marco:**

**Making progress on Chem. Is this what Columbus felt like when he discovered the New World?**

**From Marco:**

**Scratch that I hate Columbus. Who knew covalent bonding could get this bad?**

**From Marco:**

**If I die you can have all my books.**

**From Marco:**

**I'm probably annoying you with all these, aren't I? And you've got all that debate prep to do, I'm really sorry for disturbing you, I'll shut up now**

**From Marco:**

**ACP: Don't go to college, it messes you up. Start dealing drugs instead.**

I laughed out loud at my phone and Sasha looked inquisitively at me as she came in clutching a litre bottle of Coke with a twizzler in her mouth.

"What's so funny?"

"It's Marco," I explained. "He's been texting me."

"You've been talking to Marco a lot lately," Connie said over his shoulder as he selected a DVD and put it into the player. "You've become friends quickly. Especially for you." Both he and Sasha gave me pointed glances.

"Shut up!" I said, voice louder with the alcohol in my system. "I have high standards!"

"You're saying we're high standard? Cute."

Sasha flicked off the lights and bounded onto the couch beside me, leaning against my shoulder as Connie joined her other side. This was familiar for me, something that dated back years: the smell of Sasha's shampoo under my nose, food wrappers at our feet and the three of us planked out on a couch watching a movie through crappy speakers.

Connie grinned at me over Sasha, who had snuggled against me and didn't look like she would move from that position anytime soon. The light from the TV caught off his teeth.

"I'm not saying anything, but I saw you added Marco to the group chat. Smooth, bro, smooth."

I looked at him blankly. "I hope one day you go down on a lawn mower. I hope you go down on a lawn mower so hard it tears your lips off and the only way you'll be able to eat for the rest of your life is through a sucky straw."

Connie and Sasha just laughed, with Connie snorting "Adorable." I hated that they'd grown desensitized to my insults. With all the laughter a leftover kernel of popcorn Sasha had found got stuck in her throat and Connie had to pound her back before she coughed it out.

I could really do with a cigarette about now, but I settled for swearing at them and tried to ignore Sasha's hacking as I settled myself further down into the couch.

Friends. Couldn't live with 'em, couldn't afford to buy alcohol without 'em.

* * *

 

_Marco_

Biology with Dr. Zoe - or Hanji, as she liked us to call her - was always fun. We had her lab twice a week and today she'd gone all out, talking us through a version of the Jacob-Monod hypothesis in which we all had to play the parts of the different genes.

Armin and I were just exiting the class heading for lunch, but a part of me was wandering away from our discussion of B-galactosidase to my Government lecture this morning. Jean had sat beside me as usual, but we had hardly talked other than 'Hi's and telling each other about or nights (he and Connie had walked Sasha back to her dorm after their movie night, which I found incredibly cute).

My hand was toying with my phone in my pocket, and I eventually took it out.

"Hey, go on without me," I told Armin, who looked quizzically at me. "I need a minute to call someone. Grab us a table, I'll catch up!"

Armin nodded, friendly as always. "See you then," he smiled, and moved on in the crowd. I ducked out of the mass of bodies so I was standing in the alcove of a class doorway and called Jean's number. Hopefully I'd be able to arrange a meet-up, or at least ask why he was acting so strange earlier.

The phone rang without reply, and I hung up just before it went to voicemail. I sighed in frustration, looking at my screen one more time, and saw I had a text from Ymir.

We'd texted sporadically over the last few days; I didn't know her at all except for that one meeting in Jean's kitchen, but she'd seemed to take a strange interest in me. Our conversations were...intriguing.

**From: Ymir**

**no but rlly what do u think of kirschtein**

**From Ymir:**

**apart from him being a dick**

**To Ymir:**

**I like Jean! He's a fun guy :D**

**To Ymir:**

**We're playing Mario Kart right now actually, he says he doesn't want to say hi to you but I'll say hi from him anyway**

That last message had been sent a few nights ago and Ymir had finally gotten around to replying.

**From: Ymir**

**y'know what just for that im bumping u up to k2.**

I shook my head at another incomprehensible text and started off in the direction of the cafeteria. Thankfully, the halls were slightly less crowded so I didn't have to politely maneuver myself around people.

The cafeteria in the science building was a wide open space, floor-to-ceiling windows lining one side affording us a view out to the campus. Despite the size, I still managed to catch sight of Armin's table easily. He was sitting with Eren, as well as a whole host of people I knew a lot better: Mina, Mylius, Franz, Hannah and Samuel.

I stopped in line first, ordering a salad and some spongy dessert that looked like it was more suited to Hanji's lab. Tray in hand, I made my way over to the table and smiled as everyone hailed me.

"Hi guys! Mind if I-oh, thanks!"

Mylius had moved aside and I rested my hand on his familiar shoulder for balance as I slid into the space occupied by him; half the table was still empty, so there was room to spread out. Eren was across from me, and he gave me a friendly grin over his own lunch.

"'Sup, Marco. How're things? Armin tells me you just had a really chill lab."

We were soon deep in discussion about Hanji's class: Eren was slightly scared of her because of the fascination with him she'd developed after Armin (her prize pupil) introduced the two, and he'd been trying to stay away from her ever since despite the best efforts of her TA Moblit to calm her down.

He was halfway through a description of the time he and Armin hid from Hanji in the ventilation shafts above her classroom and I was shaking with laughter. I had no idea why he and Jean disliked each other so much - or at least, kept up the pretense of disliking each other, as I suspected. I actually found them quite similar.

"And then, dude, you would not believe whose classroom we fell into-"

To his right, Armin giggled, obviously aware of what was coming.

"So we hit the floor and look up, and Mr. Zacharius is standing there and he looks at us and says 'Well, I _thought_ I smelled something,' and Armin and I just lose it-"

Everyone's laughing at that point and a new voice cuts in. "What's so funny?"

There's three newcomers standing at the table; Thomas, Nack, and Daz. It was Thomas who had spoken.

"We were making jokes about your sideburns again," Mina said sweetly. Thomas tugged one of her pigtails good-naturedly in retaliation.

"My sideburns are great!"

We all groaned. "They're not," Nack told him. "They're just...really, really not."

What followed was a bout of intense ribbing of Thomas' sideburns (Eren held two chicken cutlets up to his face in a mockery even Thomas could laugh at) and teasing Franz and Hannah about their display on the couch two weeks ago. Only Thomas, Mina and I had borne witness to it, but the others found it hilarious as well. The couple in question had gone back to half-denying their relationship, which was about as ridiculous as it was funny.

Eventually after an hour had flown by, none of us had eaten much lunch (the chicken cutlets were on the floor) and a good portion of the group announced they had to leave for a shared class.

"34B's not close to the cafeteria," Nack said, checking his watch. "We should probably leave now."

"Don't worry," Eren said to Thomas with a wide grin plastered across his face as they got up from the table. "I'm gonna keep up the sideburns jokes all through class."

Mina and Nack cackled while they and Armin made to follow the two boys.

"I'm with them too," Mylius said in my ear, making me jump. "But I guess I'll see you later. We haven't had a proper talk recently."

"That's probably my fault," I admitted. "I've got a new friend I've been spending most of my time with. You know what college is like. We'll definitely have to schedule another lunch or move trip soon. Maybe I can introduce you guys!"

"That sounds fun," Mylius said, smiling in the soft way of his. "Text me later, I better go help Armin stop Eren from making Thomas' sideburns cry."

"Yeah, as if you won't be joining in with the jokes," I snorted.

He laughed cheekily and patted my shoulder on his way past me. "Later, Marco."

I was talking to the others for only a few minutes when I got a text. I ducked my head to check my phone, and something kicked in my chest when I saw it was from Jean.

**From: Best person, best hair, best abs**

**Saw you called, my phone was on mute. Don't come over tonight. Rlly busy**

"Hey, I think I'm gonna cut out," I said slowly, dragging my eyes up from the screen. I needed to go see Jean. We'd planned to have a Left 4 Dead session at his, and this coupled with his distance in Government confirmed something was up.

"Aw," said Hannah. "You too? Everyone's leaving, and my classes are all finished for today."

"Don't worry," I winked at her. "I'm sure there's a nice comfortable _couch_ nearby to keep you and Franz company."

Franz groaned and Hannah blushed a deep red as Daz offered me a high five and Samuel let out a loud 'Ayyyyyy.'

I slapped Daz's hand and cheerily waved goodbye, giggling at Franz and Hannah's protestations of " _We're not going out!_ " as I left.

When I got out of the cafeteria I popped my earphones in and decided to listen to some Beach Boys. I may have been humming along to _I Get Around_ maybe a _bit_ too loudly, judging by some odd looks I was getting, but by the time I was knocking on Jean's door at Rose House I was still nodding my head to the beat.

I plucked my earphones out and quit my nerdy surf dance moves just in time to hear Jean's voice call "It's open, did you forget your damn key again?"

He evidently thought I was Connie, and I pushed the door open and peeked my head around it. "I don't have a key to your place, but no complaints if you want to give me one. Do we really want to take our friendship to that level, though?"

Jean didn't seem to appreciate my joke, and was looking at me with a frown. The door to the den from the hallway was open and through it I could see him surrounded by books. I mean it when I say he was literally surrounded. It was like he was trying to summon the demon of revision success via pagan ceremony.

"I told you not to come over."

I felt myself falter with his flat tone, but I kept my face stay upbeat. "I know, but I wanted to check on how you were. You weren't yourself in Government. Can I come in?"

"Well, you're here now," Jean stated, and lay back in the book pile. I slipped in and closed the door behind me, setting my bag down on the floor. The hallway light blinked unsteadily a few times, but I had grown accustomed to it by now.

Jean didn't look up when I entered the room; he now held a book over his head and was glaring at it with a studiousness that said _try talking to me and I'll throw a bitch fit the likes of which you've never seen._

So I took a spot on the floor carefully not on top of any books - close to Jean, but not too close to rile him up - and took out the notepad I'd recently been carrying with me that was gradually filling up with scribbles of half-sentences and two page stories. I uncapped the pen that had been keeping my place and began writing at where I had left off. I was in a dragons phase, but I think that could probably be attributed to the _Game of Thrones_ marathon that Bertholdt, Reiner and I had a few weeks ago.

As the minutes passed Jean's frustrated silence grew more and more potent until I could practically feel him simmering beside me. I bit my bottom lip hard to keep from smiling. He could Teen Angst all he liked; I knew all he wanted was a questioning audience he could alternately brag or complain to.

After ten minutes he cracked. He tossed the book he was holding across the room where it bowled over Connie's pile of Nerf guns.

"Careful," I told him mildly. "Connie loves these things."

"Screw Connie and screw his Nerf guns. I had enough of them from high school, one time when we were playing he shot me in the fucking eye and Sasha had to drive us to hospital. And Sasha can't drive."

"They actually got you to play Nerf gun wars with them?" The image of Jean running around taking the game way too seriously and yelling battle tactics was way too funny. I chuckled. "How did they manage that?"

"That's not the point!" Jean's scowl deepened.

"Then what is it? You're the one who started the conversation."

"Wha-I-oh, yeah." Jean's jaw clenched. "I'm going over stuff for the debate. I need to be perfect if I want to get a good score."

"Perfection's an overrated concept," I told him, putting my pen back in the crease of the book and closing over the pages. "You can't aim for perfection; otherwise you'll most likely fall short. Aim for doing something good, then work from there."

Jean still looked tense, so I picked up one of his books beside me. "'Critical Legal Thinking Volume Three.' This looks like a barrel of laughs."

"I've got to get through these," Jean said, snatching the book out of my hand. "It's all relevant. You don't get it."

"Oh, because being a pre-med student doesn't involve studying huge incomprehensible textbooks of my own." I gave him a wry grin. "Come on, I know what you're going through. We've all stressed about a deadline for class, it's nothing new."

I gestured at a few of the books lying near me. "Do you want some help? I mean, obviously I don't know the first thing about your classes, but I'm an extra pair of hands...would you like me to copy up notes or something?"

Jean hunched his shoulders, looking hesitant . "Don't you have stuff of your own to do?"

"No, it'll be fine," I reassured him. It meant I would have a late night catching up with my work once I got back to my dorm, but it would be worth it if it helped Jean to calm down.

"Well...OK," he said cautiously, as if he'd never been offered help before. "Go through the books and try to find any mentions of _actus reus_ , write down whatever you find. If they mention any examples copy down the name and year of the case beside it."

"Will do!" I said, reaching over for the nearest book beside me. Jean flipped open his own book without another word, but I could tell that he'd relaxed at least a little. I opened to the contents page and began to read.

* * *

 

_Jean_

It was a quiet night. Connie was still out at Reiner's playing Bioshock so Marco and I had the place to ourselves. Sometimes he'd ask me if a piece of information he'd picked up on was relevant, but apart from that we didn't say anything. Truth be told, I was panicking. The debate tomorrow night had me more stressed than I'd like to admit.

Marco had taken a tub of hot chocolate powder from the kitchen and was spooning it into his mouth as he read, occasionally pausing with the spoon mid-air before his mouth when he got too wrapped up in whatever it was he was reading. He'd admitted the whole powder thing was something he did when he was revising, and I'd laughed at him for it, but I found myself dipping into the powder from the second spoon he'd brought with him.

After a while of silence and pens scribbling on pages, Marco placed his book down carefully on his lap and looked squarely at me. I had a feeling some sort of emotional confrontation was rapidly approaching and I wasn't going to like it, but reluctantly I put my own book down. It was better to man up right now and face whatever it was Marco wanted to get off his chest.

His voice was soft when he spoke but his eyes were stern with an 'I'm-seeing-straight-through-your-bullshit' look. Somewhere inside me a very gay version of Reiner wearing a cowboy hat hollered 'Hoooo, you're in for it now boy!'

"So," Marco finally began. "Are you gonna tell me what's got you acting so uptight?"

"I'm not acting uptight," I snapped, a knee-jerk reaction.

Marco said nothing, but kept his even gaze on me, and after a few seconds I folded. What can I say? The guy could outlast a staring contest with a KGB agent.

"OK. I'm...kind of worried about this debate," I admitted uncomfortably, playing with the scrappy corner of a book. I didn't look up to meet Marco's eyes - I didn't want to see amusement there, or worse, pity. "I'm really worried, actually. I thought it wouldn't affect me this much, but...yeah."

"Oh, well that's fine!"

I jerked my head up at the sound of Marco's voice. He was beginning to smile and I felt equal parts anger and confusion start to simmer in my chest. Was he making fun of me?

"What the hell do you mean, 'it's fine'?"

"I thought something serious might be up! It's good to know it's about schoolwork, I know you don't really have to worry yourself about that-"

My mouth stammered open a few times before I managed to verbalise any words. I'd actually opened up and he just walked all over that? "What're you talking about, this debate is serious shit-"

"Oh, I know!" he interrupted, his face dropping at my harsh tone. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like I was trivialising it! Believe me, I know how important this is. I just don't think you should stress about it so much, you're more than talented enough."

In a couple of seconds I went from almost yelling at Marco to leave to blushing like a schoolgirl. I felt sort of ashamed that I'd temporarily forgotten how genuinely good a person he was. He wasn't insulting me - he just genuinely believed I didn't have anything to worry about. He gave me a warm look and picked up his book again.

"That's it?" I asked, disgruntled he wasn't going to ask me any more questions on how I was feeling about it.

"That's all," Marco confirmed. "Don't worry about it. You'll do great!"

He returned to the book, humming every so often when he found a piece of information and wrote it down in his notebook.

I didn't go back to reading. I was too busy thinking about what he'd just said, running the words through my brain. _You'll do great. You'll do great. You'll do great._

"Hey," I said suddenly, and Marco looked at me in surprise.

"Why?"

"Why what?" Marco looked confused. I can't say I didn't blame him, but I kept going with the thought that was tumbling inside my head.

"I mean, why do you have this...faith in me? You don't think the debate's an issue at all."

Marco tapped his pen against his chin, looking as if he was seriously considering what his next words would be. I waited for him, unconsciously leaning forwards.

"You're very human, Jean," Marco finally said. "You understand people and you look at things from the point of view of the weak. That's why I think you'd be a good criminal lawyer. You're a leader and you see situations pragmatically, but from a humanistic standpoint, even if you pretend you don't. Criminal law could use someone like you."

As much as I hate dramatic clichés, and I hated clichés with a vengeance, it felt like someone had punched me hard in the chest. I tried to give a casual laugh and mentally cursed myself at how shaky it sounded. Marco and I were friends and had been since the rooftop - since our first meeting in Garrison, to be honest - but this was something more tangible than just the acknowledgement of friendship. This was proof. "You got all that from two weeks of being friends with me?"

Marco's eyes travelled up to mine. "I could have got that from one week of being friends with you. You're an open book."

"No I'm not!" I frowned.

"Well, you are to me," Marco said.

I huffed, blowing my bangs upward as I tried not to do something like smile like an idiot or hug him. I was smooth, OK. I was cool. I was the coolest guy around. A veritable man of mystery.

"Ancient Chinese proverb: Marco's like Jean's," he smiled softly and then turned the innocent expression into a smirk. He fucking smirked, like he knew how much sappy friend stuff made me uncomfortable. I picked up my spoon from the tub and threw it at him; it hit Marco square on his nose and he fell over backwards clutching at his face with a muffled 'ow.'

"Sorry man, you alright?" I grinned. Served him right.

Marco rose from the floor so I could see him frowning at me with a bright red nose. To be honest, it was more of a pout. I didn't really think Marco _knew_ how to glare.

"You're dead," he said in a flat tone, and I felt my grin plummet.

"Shit," was all I got out before Marco grabbed a cushion from the couch behind him and launched himself at me, bringing the cushion down on me.

"Remember Marco's like Jean's! Marco's like Jean's!" I screamed, trying to simultaneously throw him off in a dignified way and grab for a cushion of my own while he pummeled my face and torso, pout replaced by loud laughing.

"There will be no pity shown-" Marco began, and kept on laughing when I finally whacked him off me with my own cushion and knocked him to the floor.

* * *

 

The cushion fight aside (I had bruises, Marco's arms had definitely proved to live up to his abs) we actually got a lot of work done. Marco left just before Connie got back, but we got some really great information down and I was feeling a lot more confident about the outline of my argument.

Plus, Marco had apparently made it his life's mission for today to send me as many motivational texts as he possibly could. In the form of ancient Chinese proverbs.

"You're kidding me," I whined out loud during my first lecture of the day when I saw how many messages I had.

"What is it?" Franz asked from beside me, trying to get a look at my phone. I snatched it away before he could get a good look.

"Keep your eyes to yourself," I told him. "Or better yet, bring your lady friend to the nearest IKEA and get down and dirty on one of the plushest couches they have to offer."

"Will you quit it with the couch jokes already!"

I smirked triumphantly and went back to texting Marco.

* * *

 

For the rest of the day I was in a fairly good mood. All my classes were easy, the pizza they served in the canteen was halfway edible, and I knew I looked good in the polo shirt and slacks I'd bothered to iron for the semi-formal debate.

It was on my way to Legionnaire's Hall, where most of the law events were held, that doubts started to creep in. I was swinging my notes folder in one hand, other jammed into my jacket pocket, when I realised in one jarring moment just how much of a colossal fuckup I could make of myself in front of the best students in my class as well as some of the best law students at Trost, period.

It was just past six, so for once I'd be early, and the closer I got to Legionnaire's Hall the worse I felt. I knew logically I could do this, but maybe I just needed someone to tell me to calm down right about now and get my act together. The only problem was, everyone was busy with stuff of their own, and the guy who helped me chill out last night had dropped off the face of both texts and the interweb a few hours ago after a spectacularly cheesy bout of proverbs.

Maybe I should just get myself a 'What Would Marco Do?' bracelet. It would be easier than keeping the actual guy around, what with his weirdly great ability at cushion fights and all.

I was now at the main steps to Legionnaire's Hall, which was fairly close to the law building. We freshman pre-law students had already been shown around so thankfully I knew my way to the mock courtroom the debates would be held in. It was a fancy place, which didn't help my nerves, and I tugged at the corner of my polo shirt uncomfortably as I entered the building, hoping it had been ironed enough.

Erd was waiting outside the courtroom when I approached.

"Hey there," he greeted with his usual easy smile, checking my name off the clipboard he held. I'd sometimes wondered how someone who looked like a laid-back surf dude was one of the best law students in a prestigious college, but I could never be bothered to ask.

"Ready for tonight?"

"Of course," I said, sounding a hell of a lot more confident than I felt.

"That's the spirit, he boomed, clapping my back through the door.

Inside Professor Ackerman was sitting at a desk facing two podiums at the head of the room that were obviously going to be used by the debaters. There were several rows of benches before the desk and podiums, and a few students - some I recognised, some I didn't - were sitting in them.

Petra and Auruo were in the corner; she was fixing up his tie, which looked suspiciously similar to the one Professor Ackerman was wearing.

I couldn't see Mikasa, Eren or Annie anywhere so I skulked onto the back bench and checked my phone. Eren had sent me a few 'ARE U READY TO FUCKING DEBATE' texts which told me him and Mikasa were on their way.

My leg was jittering up and down. I needed a stress relief, and jerking it in the bathrooms didn't really sound like a viable option right about now. I checked the time - it was ten past, which meant I had enough time to sneak out for a cigarette. I got up from the bench and moved out past Erd in the doorway who was welcoming not-Marco, that bastard.

Vaguely, I remembered there being a door outside further down the corridor. When I reached it the bottom of the door was propped open, making it easy to slide outside.

I was on what could be called a balcony if it wasn't the first floor; as it was, it was really just some benches on a flat square of wooden decking jutting out from the building and bordered by a handrail.

Apparently it didn't get much use, so I don't think anyone would hold it against me if I smoked out here. I slouched against the bench closest to me and pulled the packet of cigarettes out of my pocket. (I'd stuffed them there before I came here because I had a feeling that I'd need some nicotine-style fortification.)

My battered lighter took a few tries to catch, but eventually it did, and I was soon exhaling a long stream of smoke. I hadn't done this is too long - it wasn't a roof overlooking the lights of Trost, but it would do.

My phone vibrated occasionally signalling texts coming in, but I ignored it. This was what I needed, something to ground myself. I always got too worked up. The cigarette was halfway finished and I was toying with the idea of lighting a new one when I heard the squeak of the door behind me.

I turned, smoke tailing from the cigarette dangling between my lips, and locked eyes with Marco. He was wearing a blue shirt with a smart dark jacket over it that stuck closely to his broad shoulders, and probably looked significantly more put-together than me right now, puffing away like the ghost of angsty emo-core days past.

"Eren told me you might be out here," he said, coming to lean beside me against the bench. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of the smoke, but didn't say anything about it. "I texted you but you didn't reply."

I pinched the cigarette out of my mouth between my thumb and pointer finger to speak.

"You're too early. The debate starts at seven."

"But you have to be ready at six thirty," he pointed out. "And I wanted to talk to you beforehand."

"Oh God," I intoned, clamping my mouth back around the cigarette. "Not another Chinese proverb."

"Not quite," he said, rolling up the sleeves of his jacket to mid-elbow. He still managed to look classy like that, some distant part of my brain noticed with frustration. Shut up, brain.

"I wanted to check how you're feeling."

"I'm fine," I stated blandly. "Couldn't be better." While that wasn't entirely true, at least I wasn't feeling like as much as a nervous virgin as I had before coming out here.

"And how much of that is to do with the cigarette?" he asked, nodding to the item between my lips. Well fuck. He had me. "It's a metaphor," I muttered, taking another defiant drag.

"Jean, as much as I appreciate pop culture references-"

"Look, I said I'm fine," I snapped. "Just leave it." I could feel my content mood start to dissipate along with the smoke. Nicotine gods, you have failed me.

I flicked some ash off the end and made to stand up and head inside, my stomach twisting itself into knots both at the looming debates and acting like a dick towards Marco.

I hadn't banked on him standing up to me.

"Get back here, Jean."

I paused mid-step and turned around. Marco was standing before me, arms crossed and jaw set.

"You're anxious right now, and that's OK. Of course you're going to be nervous. But you're acting really pissy and you need to calm down."

I felt a sudden flash of angry unfairness. "Hey, wait-"

"Shut up Jean, I'm going to give you an inspirational speech and _you're going to listen_."

He took another step towards me, the tiny height difference between us giving him the advantage.

"Evidently you've forgotten everything I was trying to help you realise last night. You've got to get out of your head; you're too wrapped up in yourself. I think usually you're good at focusing on what you have to do, it's just this blind panic that you're not going to succeed like you want to that's making you lose your cool."

He ran a hand through his hair in a frustrated movement. My eyes tracked the movement, then darted back to his face. My gaze was going everywhere, actually: over the tight line of his jaw, his fierce eyes, the freckles standing out across his cheeks, his Adam's apple as it bobbed while he spoke. It was all too much to comprehend, all these words speaking of belief for me, _in_ me.

"There's nothing holding you back but yourself, and that's an overused statement but it's true. You have so much potential! I know you can do this, and you know you can do this; you're this weird sort of conundrum of fifty per cent pure self-confidence and fifty per cent self-doubt. It's like Aristotle said of the golden mean," he concluded like it was a completely normal thing for people our age who weren't Armin to quote archaic Greek philosophers, "the best path is between two extremes."

My mouth opened with no idea of what I was going to say. Anything after all that would just sound weak. "You're pretty damn smart," was all I managed to come up with.

"Thank you," Marco replied, the corners of his eyes crinkling. His vibrant expression had faded into his usual cheerful composure. "I'd like to think so.

"Now come on," he continued, plucking the cigarette from my fingers and dropping it onto the decking where he ground it underfoot. "You've got a debate to win."

"You wikiHow'd 'motivational speeches', didn't you," I grumbled, but I was sort of smiling as I said it.

Once we were back inside the building Marco stopped before we entered the courtroom door. "Got to make sure you look smart," he said impishly and began brushing invisible lint off my shoulders.

"Dude," I complained, but held still. In a comforting way, it reminded me of all the times my mom had done the same thing to me. I then realised I was comparing one of my closest friends to my mom, and immediately wrenched myself away from that weird train of thought. Really, I was just glad we'd moved back to our comfortable area of bro-ship after that intense scene outside.

He moved onto smoothing the creases that had formed in the chest of my polo shirt. "You could have at least ironed this," he complained, and before I could do more than say 'Oops' the courtroom door opened and Professor Ackerman walked out.

He looked from Marco and me, directly at the hands frozen on my chest, and sighed. "Of course."

"We're not-" Marco and I began at the same time, but were silenced by Professor Ackerman's "I really don't care. Really."

He gave us both a disdainful look. "You're late," he told me. "We've almost started."

"I did check in," I said defensively.

"And that's the only reason why I'm not kicking you out of my class on your ass."

 _What beautiful poetry_ , my brain supplied.

"I'll just go sit down," Marco said to me, patting my arm. No, thumping. It was a thump. A bro thump. "Good luck!"

He headed past Professor Ackerman and I saw him sitting down next to the unmistakable figures of skinny beanpole Bertholdt and the blonde brawny Braun. They'd obviously turned out to support Annie, but it was good to see more familiar faces.

"You're second up," Professor Ackerman drawled. "So go where you're fucking meant to be and meet up with Petra. She's next door."

He walked back into the courtroom without another word, and I took a deep breath in and steeled myself. _Showtime, Kirschtein. Don't screw this up._

I strode forward to the side door that led to a smaller chamber off the courtroom, where debaters would presumably wait before going on.

I entered the room just as Annie and a guy were leaving through the door to the courtroom, and I felt momentarily guilty that I hadn't wished her good luck. Like I said, it was momentary. If anyone wouldn't be bothered by someone wishing them good luck it was Annie.

"Hi Jean," Petra said, closing the door to the courtroom behind Annie and the boy. "How're you feeling for your first debate?"

"Alright, I guess," I shrugged, looking around. "Where's my debate partner? Aren't they here yet?"

"Seriously, do you ever use your eyes?" a familiar voice came from my right. With a sinking feeling, I turned my head slowly: and sure enough, there was Eren sprawled on a bench. He winked at me and I dropped my head into a facepalm.

"What did I ever do to deserve this," I whispered.

"You two were one of the obvious choices for first debate partners. It's very interesting. You picked exactly the same topics to cover, only you chose to argue them from completely different standpoints!" Petra informed us.

Eren and I looked at each other. "Figures," I grunted.

He nodded. "Ready to go down in an earlier round, Kirschtein?"

"You're the only one going down swinging, Jaeger," I responded just as snottily, and we both grinned at the familiar banter from our high school football games.

Eren seemed to be thinking in the same vein as I was and he shuffled over so I could drop onto the bench next to him. "Hey, remember all the times during football we used to dump the water out of our water bottles and replace them with vodka?" he asked, a nostalgic tone in his voice.

"Ah, memories," I replied. "Your mom still mad at you for that?"

Our coaches had caught us slipping in the vodka during half-time at a game and immediately ratted us out to our parents. Needless to say, it wasn't pretty.

"Yeah," he said resignedly. "Is yours?"

"Yeah," I sighed.

"Momma's boy."

"Like you're one to talk."

We exchanged insults back and forth, and for some reason it felt oddly calming. Not like Marco helping me study and telling me to get a grip of myself, but in a way that was inherently familiar.

By the time Petra checked her watch and went to stand by the door, I still felt in control. I tried to remember what Marco had said. The best path...was between two extremes.

"Eren," I began. I looked at him beside me and offered my best attempt at a friendly smile. "Good luck."

He looked surprised (what, like I couldn't say good luck to someone without Jaeger being an asshole about it? Sheesh) but then gave me a grin.

"You too, Horseface."

We nodded at each other and Petra beckoned us forward without opening the door for Annie and her partner. I guessed the people who had finished the debates went to sit in the audience as they waited for their next turn.

When we stood up I knocked my shoulder against his, maybe not as hard as I usually would have. "You're going to need all the luck you can get, Jaeger."

He raised his head, I squared my shoulders, and with Petra's reassuring smile as she opened the door, we walked out into the room.

* * *

 

_Marco_

At the end of the debates Reiner, Bertholdt, Connie, Sasha and I waited on the steps outside Legionnaire's Hall for our friends.

Reiner and Bertl were like proud dads gushing about their daughter's appearance in a school play; Reiner kept saying things like "Our girl _slayed_ ," while Bertl smiled proudly. I almost expected them to whip out photo albums and show us their favourite pictures of Annie growing up.

"It's such a shame Armin wasn't able to make it," I mused. There had been a Philosophy Society meeting he couldn't get out of. "He felt really awful about missing Mikasa and Eren."

"I recorded everything, don't worry," Connie said, wiggling his phone in his hand. He was still in his gymnastics jacket and jogging bottoms and had been doing backflips to keep us all amused as we waited. Sasha had taken to grading him out of ten.

I rubbed my hands together to try and get some warmth in them, watching as he was awarded a seven for a 'solid landing, but not enough dramatic flair.' It was a cold night, and dark, but I still felt the happy warmth that had come from Jean's triumphant look after his debates. He'd done well, really well, and he knew it.

"What're you smiling about?" Sasha asked curiously.

"Oh, nothing," I replied vaguely. "Just looking forward to food later. You suggested we go to Stohess Diner, right?"

"Right!" she cheered. "Reiner, Bertholdt, are you up for that?"

"Sure," Reiner agreed. "They have vegan stuff for Annie, right?"

"They have everything at Stohess," Sasha assured him.

"And meat? I love me some meat."

"Oh my God, you have to try their burgers," Sasha enthused. She and Reiner delved into a loud conversation on the virtues of fast food while the rest of us conducted a slightly calmer discussion on the more generic topic of classes.

When we heard the sound of other voices we all jerked our heads around to see the pre-law students exiting the building. The majority passed by noisily discussing the debates, but the four we were waiting for stopped a couple of steps above us.

Annie rolled her eyes when she saw Reiner and Bertl's embarrassingly thrilled faces, but I only noticed her for a second before I moved my gaze on to Jean, who was looking past everyone at me.

I raised my right hand in greeting, and it looked like his was going to echo it when two figures slammed into him.

Jean's expression dissolved into annoyance as he glared down at Thing 1 and Thing 2. I giggled a little into the corner of my jacket.

That was great, Jean!" Sasha squealed.

"Hey now, you're an all star," Connie declared, thumping Jean on the back.

"Knock it off," Jean scowled, pushing Connie away. "You're acting like it's a surprise I did well."

"You were so sure you'd be that good?"

"Of course," Jean said haughtily, then caught my knowing eye and blushed slightly.

"Wait a minute!" he exclaimed suddenly, staring at the T-shirt Sasha was wearing. "That's mine, where the hell did you-"

"You guys were amazing too!" Sasha exclaimed to Eren, Annie and Mikasa, ignoring Jean's blustering.

I made my way up the steps to Jean, who was too busy still glaring at Sasha to notice my approach. "Hi there," I said in his ear, and he whirled around, looking startled.

"So how did Professor Ackerman grade you? He was giving you marks afterwards, right?"

"Oh, yeah. I got a B plus." Jean sniffed, like it didn't mean anything to him, but there was a happiness behind the words that was obvious.

I felt a smile blazing itself across my face. "That's so great!" I wrapped one of my arms around Jean's shoulders and pulled him against me in a one-arm hug. "I guess all that hard work paid off!"

Jean was blushing and trying to push me away, but I just held on to him tighter. We were friends, and damn it, we were going to hug like proper men. "Hey guys, Jean got a B plus!" I announced to the non-law students. We were met by whoops from Sasha, Connie and Reiner and applause from Bertholdt.

"Annie got a B plus too," Reiner grinned, clapping a hand that was as big as her face onto her shoulder. "That's my girl!"

Annie's eyes glinted in a scary way, and I thought it necessary to step in before she did something; I'd seen her use her combat moves on Reiner when he was annoying her before, and I really didn't want a trip to the ER ruining everyone's night.

"Mikasa, Eren, how did you guys do?" I asked them, letting go of Jean and stepping forwards ready to prevent any potential kicking.

"Mikasa got the only A in the class, obviously," Eren said with an obviously proud note in his voice. "But I only got a B. I'll have to work harder next time." He spoke with such resolution I felt a rush of affection for his determination.

"I'm sure you will, Eren! And anyway, this is only the first debate."

"Marco's right," Mikasa said quietly. "Getting a B is wonderful, especially in this first semester. Most people only got C's at best. I'm proud of you."

"It's still not an A," Eren grumbled, but seemed to be placated.

"So are we heading to get food now? I'm freezing to death here and I've got football practice in the morning," Reiner grumbled.

"Hell yeah I'm up for that!" Eren said, rushing forward to walk with Reiner, Mikasa silently following. The rest of us fell into step behind them.

"By the way, I've just texted Mina and asked her to hold a big table at Stohess for us," Connie announced, tapping the keypad of his phone.

"Nice one," Reiner commended, slipping his hand in Bertholdt's back pocket. Bertholdt turned alarmingly red. Jean and I caught each other's eye and looked away, biting back our laughs.

"Yeah, you finally did us a solid," Jean yawned.

"Hey, my mum didn't call me Con-RAD for nothing!"

He and Sasha slapped high fives.

"I thought you hated people calling you Conrad?" Bertholdt asked inquisitively. His face seemed to have cooled down slightly, but the nervous sweat was still there. I decided to make him a hot chocolate once we got back to our dorm as a congratulatory 'well done for not sweating to death and your boyfriend's enforced PDA' message.

"Yeah, but I'm allowed to. Any of you do it and I'll go full ninja."

This led to Eren challenging Connie to a ninja-off while Mikasa told Eren to calm down and Sasha egged Connie on. Jean and I found ourselves walking at the back of the group, our arms swinging beside each other in sync.

"Y'know," Jean started, "thanks for the help you gave me. I would've been screwed without you."

I shook my head. "I really don't think so. Getting that B, your performance up there...that was all you. Maybe I just helped nudge you towards it."

"I'm thanking you dude, and that's a rare thing from me, so just accept it."

"Sure thing."

We walked in comfortable silence for a few more minutes, listening to Reiner's booming voice telling us all about the Halloween party he was planning to throw. Outside the bubble of our friends, the air of campus was very quiet. I wouldn't be here without Jean, I realised. Thanks to him, in the past few weeks I'd met amazing people and become even closer to the ones I already did know. I was turning my head, about to thank him for what his offer of friendship had meant outside of just his friendship with me, but he beat me to speaking first.

"I'm sorry." His voice was quiet when he said it, but it grew in strength as he went on. When he looked at me, his harsh amber eyes were softened by the lamps above our heads. "I'm sorry I was a dick about this whole debate, when you were right. I really did have nothing to worry about."

"That's OK, Jean," I smiled. I registered just then of how much I said his name, but I couldn't help it; it was the type of name that fit right in my mouth, the type of word that I'd like to create myself.

"We're still getting to know each other, we're not going to get it right all the time. I learned just how prickly you can be." I nudged his side to take the sting out of my words. "And I learned that you really hate being told what to do."

I paused, waiting for his reply.

"Uh...I guess I learned that you're one stubborn fucker."

My smile turned mischievous. "Damn right."

I curled my hand up and lifted it; Jean mimicked me and we bumped our fists together solidly.

"We should have a handshake," I said in a conversational tone. It was one of the things that really should be settled early on into a friendship.

Jean broke the fist bump and looked like he was resisting the urge to cover his face with both hands. I too resisted an urge, this time to cackle like an old Hollywood villain as I watched Jean's 'I'm-too-cool' attitude do battle with the unrelenting nerd streak I knew for a fact he had within him.

"Dude no, are you still in fifth grade?"

"Friends have handshakes," I practically sang. "It's an ancient Chinese proverb."

Jean groaned; I'd used what had now somehow become one of the highest powers of our friendship.

"Did you have to bring the proverbs into it?"

"I'm serious about handshakes, Jean," I said, my eyes glinting into his. "Deadly serious."

He shifted a little and looked at his fingers. I felt a surge of victory. I had him. "So how about we start off with a slap then a double bump?"

"That sounds like a weird sex move," Jean snorted.

"That's not a no," I said playfully, nudging him.

"Oh my God. Look, we'll slap hands twice, do a couple of thumb twists then lock elbows, how about that?"

It seemed like he was more knowledgeable about handshakes than he let on. "Sounds good, only let's end with a fist bump explosion. Go out with a bang." I tried not to let my internal snicker at my own pun show on my face.

"Do we have to?"

I just looked at him and after staring back with an obstinate expression he relented.

"Fine. C'mon, let's practiced. If we're going to do this, we're not doing it half-assed."

We took a few attempts to learn the moves we'd set out, awkwardly turned around to face each other as we walked fast enough to keep up with the rest of our group.

"Are you guys making a _handshake_?" Reiner's voice called, startling us. He had his head turned round, smirking with his hand still ensconced in Bertl's back pocket. The others looked back at Jean and me.

I glanced at Jean, wondering what his response would be, but his expression was fierce. "So what if we are?"

Reiner laughed. "No problem with me, little dudes. I keep trying to get these two to form a handshake with me."

"We're not having a handshake," Annie said in a voice that brokered no argument.

Connie and Sasha merely looked proud, walking backwards with seemingly no interest in their personal safety as they regarded us.

"We've tried so long to get him to help invent a secret handshake we can use," Sasha said wistfully. "Congratulations, Marco."

"Swag on, my sons," Connie added with a hand over his heart. "Swag on."

Up ahead we were approaching the gates out of campus. Connie and Sasha eventually lost interest in us and jumped into the conversation between Eren and Mikasa wherein she was trying to dissuade him from buying a whole apple pie for himself tonight.

"Fear of diabetes is for the weak," Sasha scoffed at her, and that was the last I heard before I dipped out of listening and glanced at Jean. His nose was red from the cold, which I found strangely charming. (You could call your friend charming with it remaining completely platonic, right? Right? Right.)

"This is a good night," I told him.

He sounded exasperated when he responded. "Don't say you're getting sentimental on me now."

"Oh no, I'll leave that for later when we're holding back Eren's hair while he's being sick after too much pie."

"Shut up, that's a real possibility," Jean said darkly. "One time Connie and I had a football game with him, right? And when we went to get dinner with Armin, the girls and a few of our friends afterwards Eren did this challenge with a guy where they had to eat as many hotdogs as they could in ten minutes."

From his disgusted face I could tell something nasty was coming up. "Eren lost?"

"No, he won. When the idiot's determined to do something, he'll do it. But he ended up puking everywhere afterwards. Mikasa had to carry him home. You don't want a repeat."

"Your high school years sound fun," I laughed. "I wish I could've met you then."

"Nah, I was a dick for most of them. You in high school though," it was his turn to nudge me, "that I'd like to see. I bet you were even more of an honour student than you were now."

I blushed. "Shut up, you were an honour student too!"

"How did you-"

"Armin told me. And believe me, I'm not this squeaky clean person you seem to think I am. Some of the parties I went to...they got pretty crazy. This one time I was in a cupboard with..." I trailed off when I noticed the way Jean was staring at me, a mixture of incredulity and fascination.

"Anyway," I coughed once, nervously. "That's a story for another time. Hey, want to split chili fries again to celebrate how you did tonight?"

"Sure thing," Jean said, agreeing to ignore my unsubtle topic change. "But if it's me who's being celebrated you're paying."

"Fine, cheapskate."

"Nerd."

"Dork."

"Fuckstick."

"Oh, that was inventive!"

"Thanks," Jean smirked, and we were both silent as we carried on, listening to the chatter of our friends in front of us, our arms still swinging to the same beat.


	4. Halloween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean doesn't understand the spirit of the season.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's taken a crazily long time for me to update, but in my defense, this is 43 pages on word. Thank you to everyone who comments/bookmarks/gives kudos: without a doubt, it's an incredible motivator whenever I'm feeling writer's block.
> 
> Again, any and all feedback is wonderful; it's great to hear what people liked or would like improved!

_Marco_

 

"I don't understand why we have to go to this party," Jean complained, tossing a dime off of the roof. He ignored an annoyed yell as another unsuspecting student obviously had to duck the missile. Jean, unperturbed, dug in his pocket for a coin. "I mean, there's going to be people there."

"Yes, Jean," I said patiently. I'd grown tired of gently trying to dissuade him from throwing the coins and resigned myself to stopping him if he moved on to actually aiming at passers-by. "There is going to be people. There are people everywhere, in fact. You live in a world which is populated by over seven billion _people_."

"I wish I wasn't," he grumbled, flicking another dime.

It was the worst weather of the fall so far. The skies were a thick dull grey and there was a heavy overhanging feeling in the air, like the clouds would rip any minute and dump half an ocean of rain.

Jean and I had been sitting on the roof of Rose House for so long now my butt was beginning to go numb. I tried to shift surreptitiously, but I needn't have bothered; Jean was looking away from me, watching the unimpressive horizon of Trost office blocks. It was only really at night that the rooftop had a noteworthy view.

Jean's Topic of Complaint For the Day was the fact that Reiner had announced he was holding a party. I was all up for going myself - I liked parties and mixing with people provided things didn't get too overboard - but Jean was my opposite in the sense that he hated mixing with people at parties unless things _did_ get overboard.

I wasn't too sure when we'd got onto the subject (it might have started with me describing the incredibly audible sex Bertholdt and Reiner had on our den couch on Tuesday night) but once Jean had gotten into moaning about something, he was on a roll for a good twenty minutes at least.

Mid-rant about societal obligations, I leaned back and watched him.

Since the night of the debate session, he'd changed infinitesimally. I couldn't exactly put my finger on it, but there was something in the way he acted; he seemed surer of himself, but not necessarily in a cocky way. It was less superficial than his regular in-your-face self-belief, like this was a steady confidence, one that was more genuine.

I don't know. Maybe I was just overanalysing again. But he had seemed generally happy since his success in the debates, up until now with Reiner's plans.

"I've only been to one party of his but I had to leave halfway through," Jean was saying with a venomous glint in his eye. "Someone puked on me. I don't know who, but if I ever find out..."

"Reiner's parties aren't usually like that," I assured him, sinking my face down into my sweater to escape the sudden breeze. "They're usually amazing, I suppose they can get a little crazy, but they're always fun. Bertholdt puts on an apron and makes everyone breakfast the next morning."

"Yeah, I've heard you guys go on about them, but I don't get why they're so damn special. Don't get me wrong, I love partying as much as the next guy, but not with about fifty sweaty strangers who are, let me remind you, being sick. On _me_. Do you know how long it took my mom to get the stain out?"

"I've never been to a party where fifty people were throwing up simultaneously, but that sounds like one hell of a story," I told Jean, shooting him a cheesy grin. It managed to coax out a reluctant smile of his own.

"I do like partying, it's just the people I have to share the party with that're the problem."

I bit back a smile at the typically Jean response. "What?" he said agressively, misinterpreting the twist of my lips. "I didn't take you to be 'Marco Bodt: Party Animal'."

"Oh, definitely not," I laughed. "You know I'm not the most exciting person. But I like letting loose now and then. It's fun."

"You won't think that if you got to Reiner's," he sighed. "Eren's going to be there, and me and him at the same party is not something you want to see."

I could only imagine the bloodshed. "I'm guessing you two get into fights?"

"Let's just say it's not something you want to see happening," Jean said darkly. I had only a few seconds to mull that over before he was groaning again. "And don't get me started on how crazy Sasha and Connie are." He shook his head. "Some of the stories I could tell you from high school, man..."

"I'd want to hear them," I said in an encouraging voice. I liked to hear more about Jean's younger days, when judging from what I heard he was even more sulky than he is now.

"Eh, I don't know. I was a little shit back then."

I toed the line of my sneakers along the ground, nudging the edge of the roof. I didn't expect Jean to continue.

"And I think you're plenty interesting."

"Wow," I said, widening my eyes in only half-mock surprise. As insignificant as it was, any sort of endearment from Jean was as appreciated as it was rare. "Thanks, but wow. A show of emotion from Jean Kirschtein! Can I ask for a round of applause?"

"No, you dork," Jean complained, but there was no bite in his words. "I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true." His brows furrowed together as he looked out in the direction of Trost city. I felt a brief moment of eyebrow envy, because Jean had seriously great eyebrows for a guy. No amount of mere plucking could achieve that level of eyebrow game. I then realised my brain had vocalised the phrase 'eyebrow game' and internally shot myself.

"It's cold as fuck," Jean said, repressing a shiver as those glorious eyebrows narrowed again. I abstained from mentioning it was probably unwise for him to have gone outside in a tatty button-up.

"Let's head inside then. It'll only get colder." I stood up, offering my hand to him. Jean stuck out his own and grasped my forearm; it never took a lot of effort to pull him up, the angry delicate flower that he is.

"Connie'll still be there," he reminded me sourly as he got to his feet. When we'd left, Connie had kicked us off the television to spend half the time yelling at a show and the other half yelling over Skype to Sasha about it.

"We can put a DVD on your laptop," I coaxed. "One of your favourites. Wait, can I pick it this time? You said you were fine with watching John Hughes' movies..."

"I said they weren't awful." He crossed his arms stubbornly.

"Don't lie, you totally wanted to be Ferris Bueller."

"Whatever," Jean said, his deliberately flippant tone giving himself away. He started forwards towards the fire escape, scuffing his Converse against the roof, and I walked a little quicker to catch up to him. Yet again, I blessed that awkward teen growth spurt that had left me with a long stride.

"We did watch quite a few movies earlier," I admitted. "We could do something else you wanted."

Jean stopped at the black rail, one hand resting against it. "Yeah, we've watched a lot. And there's no fucking way we're watching _Cabin in the Woods_ again."

"Hey that's a great film-"

"When you said you loved it, I didn't think we'd be watching _that_ at three in the morning. Jesus."

"You said you could handle horror movies," I said, upraising my palms.

"I can!" Jean snapped. "You just didn't prepare me, you said it would be funny!"

"It is," I said, greatly enjoying myself. Riling up Jean was as easy as it was funny. "You were too busy hiding behind me to hear the comedy."

"You're such a jerk," he grimaced, but he didn't sound too annoyed. "I could dig out some of Connie and I's old games and see if I can get any of them going."

"Good plan," I grinned. "Will Connie be OK with that?"

"He'll have to be, he's the one that kicked us off the TV," he snorted. A sudden, fierce grin appeared on his face. "Oh man, I've got it. Let's cling-film all the stuff he has in the bedroom. Sasha and I did that to him once and he flipped it."

"Jean," I reprimanded. "That's mean."

"Come on," he said, fierce grin intensifying. "He'll get so pissed off, and anyway, he deserves it."

"I don't think...I mean, we shouldn't mess with his things..."

Jean looked at me expectantly, raising one of those eyebrows. "You know you want to. Think of it. Sweet vengeance."

My shoulders slumped. I really couldn't hold out for long. For all that he couldn't stand horror films, Jean could apparently talk me into just about anything. "Fine."

 

Later that evening, following a long gaming session, I let myself into my suite. I'd left after Connie discovered nearly every item he owned in the bedroom separately wrapped in clingfilm right down to the pens scattered on his desk. He'd been torn between yelling and seeming seriously impressed, and when I left Jean had tipped me a salute and cocky wink, so I guessed there wouldn't be too much discord between them tonight.

Once I got my door open I noticed the couch was occupied by the same three people as it had been when I'd left the suite earlier in the day. Bertholdt was sitting primly with a plate of brownies we'd made together a few nights ago on his lap. Reiner had an arm flung over the couch behind his boyfriend's shoulders, and Annie was sipping on one of the vegan smoothies Bertl made her, knees drawn up to her chest.

"Hi everyone," I greeted, leaving my coat and bag by the door. Annie had already turned her attention back to the television but Bertholdt gave me a smile and Reiner hailed me with a can he held in one hand. "Hey, Marco. Long time no see."

"We ate breakfast together," I said wryly, making my way over to the fridge and pulling out a Coke can from the bottom shelf. I thought I might grab a drink before diving into the depths of hell (Chemistry revision, for those not in the know).

I did have to revise, but I took time in popping the top of the Coke and leaning against the counter surface as I talked to the trio on the couch. They were watching a wrestling match, which wasn't really my thing, but it was hard not to respond to Reiner's good-natured banter.

"A lot can change since breakfast," Reiner stated. "For instance, Bertholdt and I have screwed twice since then. I've lost count of how many times Annie's threatened to kill us."

"They had sex in the bedroom while I was through here," Annie told me in a monotone. "It wasn't the first time."

"And it won't be the last," Reiner smirked.

Annie sunk lower into her hoodie, gazing balefully at Reiner with her icy blue eyes.

"You were hanging out with Jean, right? What were you guys doing?"

"Uh..." I stalled, trying to think up a better way to describe eating leftover noodles and playing _Lord of the Rings: Conquest_ for three hours.

"Just...chilling."

Apparently 'chilling' was enough of an explanation for Reiner because he nodded. "Anyway, we were just talking about my party," he continued cheerfully. "Sometimes we can convince Annie to DJ once she's had a few shots."

"Annie is a really good DJ," Bertholdt agreed.

The girl in question continued sucking on her smoothie's straw with a murderous expression, evidently as pumped for the party as Jean was.

"Come on, don't act like you're not looking forward to it." Reiner made a move like he was going to ruffle Annie's hair, but then catching sight of her face, thought better of it. "Your DJ-ing is partly why I'm doing the pre-Halloween party." He paused. "Well, that and I really fucking love pumpkins."

"Maybe it's because they remind you so much of your own head," Annie muttered, briefly slipping the straw out of her mouth to speak.

Reiner's offended face was enough to make me choke on my Coke and double over wheezing; a few moments later I heard light footsteps and Bertl's large hand patting me helpfully on the back.

"You need some water?" Reiner asked, half-rising from the couch, but I waved him away as I regained my breath, thanking Bertholdt. He returned to his seat as I rubbed my chest, and I couldn't miss the way Reiner's eyes followed the curve of the tall brunette's back before he sank down into the couch with the awkwardness of a baby giraffe folding up its limbs. He tugged at the corner of his preppy shirt/thin sweater combo - evidently, Reiner's stare hadn't gone unnoticed.

I felt a brief, pathetic urge for that; the easy uncomplicated relationship Reiner and Bertholdt shared. I was a romantic who hadn't dated anyone for a good while, and I missed it.

"You have too many parties," Annie was saying as I recovered. I could only imagine the hilarity on Jean's face if he'd been here to see it. _Thank God_ , I prayed fervently, _that Jean wasn't here to see it_. "And what about all the football players you have over here after Tuesday practices?"

"We're just having a buddies night, it's easier for everyone to meet up on campus than it is at my place," Reiner said pointedly. "And it means Bertl and I can hook up afterwards."

"I can confirm that," I chipped in, deciding to do the kind thing and not mention that the two of them had sex at the same volume as a klaxon attached to a Duracell bunny.

The four of us existed in a comfortable semi-silence after that, me finishing up my Coke while the TV played almost inaudibly, until Reiner and Bertholdt started feeding each other brownies and Reiner got a bit too inventive with the way he licked chocolate off his boyfriend's finger.

As happy as I was for their relationship, I scrunched up my can into the bin and headed over to collect my coat and bag. There were just some things you really didn't want to see your friends doing, and Reiner giving Bertholdt a hungry look that had nothing to with the brownies he was being fed was not one of them.

I told the trio I'd catch them later but Reiner and Bertholdt seemed more interested in each other. Annie gave me the kind of unbothered nod that came with years of being the best friend of an incredibly in-love couple. I couldn't exactly call her a third wheel, though. If anything, Reiner and Bertholdt were _her_ third wheel.

When I got into the bedroom I laid my jacket down on my bed and plopped myself down into my desk chair, letting a sigh out from my pursed lips.

My foot tapped idly against one of the stacks of books under the desk and I looked blankly down at the notes I had piled in front of me. Now I was actually ready to do work, it seemed like a far less appealing prospect.

I opened the flap of my bag and lifted out my phone from the interior pocket, hoping someone would have sent me a message or even a Snapchat (which Sasha and Connie were absurdly fond of) that would distract me for a while.

There were two new texts, both sent to me from Ymir in the past hour. Remembering with trepidation all the previous weird texts I'd received from her, I opened it up.

**From Ymir:**

gay

**From Ymir:**

i mean hey

I stared at the screen for a few moments longer than necessary then slowly closed my eyes, letting my phone drop onto the desk. The temptation to take out my mp3 and listen to _Sound of Silence_ was stronger than it had been in a very long time.

 

The next day started normally: I texted Jean to remind him to get up for Government (gently, in all caps) and talked with Bertholdt over breakfast - Annie and Reiner had eventually returned to their own accommodation after dinner the night before.

Dr. Zoe let us out of class early; we weren't entirely sure why, but 'lizard-related emergency' and 'beans' were mentioned.

"Maybe she's evolving some sort of amphibian super-species," Armin said thoughtfully, picking up a snack pot in the canteen lunch queue. Jean had agreed to meet me here for lunch, but a sweeping glance of the room told me he hadn't arrived yet.

"It wouldn't be surprising. We have been discussing genome manipulation a lot in class recently."

"Would Hanji really do that though?" I asked sceptically as we sat down.

We looked at each other across the table.

"She would," we agreed simultaneously.

We spent the next few minutes going over her class - Armin's impression of Hanji's wide-eyed, near-salivating look of excitement when she described a particularly interesting detail of the course was surprisingly good - and it wasn't long before we were joined by a few others dropping their trays noisily beside us: Eren, Mylius, Dazz and Mina.

"Armin, learn my classes for me," Eren whined as soon as he sat down, dropping his head onto Armin's shoulder.

"No," Armin said simply, ignoring Eren's groan and patting his friend's head while still eating bites of food from his fork with his other hand. He gave me an apologetic look at the interruption of our conversation. I smiled back at him with a small shrug - I knew Eren didn't mean to intrude.

Mina was twirling one of her pigtails around her finger. "So, guys. Reiner's party this Saturday. You all in?"

She was met with enthusiastic sounds from Eren and Mylius, slightly less enthusiastic sounds from Armin, and Dazz mururing that he wasn't too sure he'd be attending.

"That's lame," Eren said with a dismayed expression. "Reiner's parties are great. Why aren't you going to come?"

Dazz ducked his head, and I felt a rush of sympathy towards him; I had begun talking to him at the start of the year, and I was aware of some of his background issues that the others weren't.

"I'm not sure either," I said, giving Dazz a small smile. "Jean and I were thinking of just hanging out this weekend, maybe getting some assignments done."

"It's too bad Jean's not coming, them," Armin said in a bubblegum-sweet voice, distracting me from the thankful look Dazz tossed me way. "You and him know all about how fun parties can get, don't you?" he added, nudging Eren in the side.

Everyone at the table gave Armin confused looks, except Eren, who scowled. "Don't even think of bringing that up."

Armin gave a trilling laugh, and I was just about to question what they were talking about when a familiar figure caught my eye; through the long canteen windows I could see Jean on the pathway approaching the building. Two familiar figures were by his side, and it took me a minute to realise they were Franz and Hannah.

"Jean!" I called, waving an arm above my head. "Jean, over here!"

After a few moments of looking around for the source of the voice Jean's face showed recognition and raised a hand in a half-wave back to me while he led Franz and Hannah over.

"Hey," Armin said cheerily as Jean let himself into the seat between us. He exchanged a weird sort of glare/nod with Eren. They hadn't had an argument since the debates, which Armin and I counted as progress for now.

"'Sup, Armin. How're you doing?"

Jean's arm brushed mine as he spoke to the blonde, a silent 'hello.' I tapped our elbows together by way of reply.

"I didn't know you guys knew each other," I said, looking between Jean and Franz and Hannah as they sat down.

"We have a Math class together," Jean grunted, pushing onto the bench beside me. "I help Franz because he's shit at it."

"Hey," Hannah said sharply. "He's not that bad. It's just Trig he's shit at. Right, Franz?"

She grinned at the boy to her right, whose defensive expression had melted into a rueful one. "Looking at Trig equations gives me war flashbacks. I can't help it."

"One thing that can help is actually listening to the teacher and not booping Hannah's nose or whatever stuff it is when you two start giggling and I quit paying attention to you."

I did my best not to laugh. "Jean..."

"Don't 'Jean' me, Marco, they're hella annoying."

Franz and Hannah had ceased paying attention and were now engaged in conversation with Eren.

"Come on, why are you guys really friends?" I asked, honestly curious. "I know you wouldn't stick around with someone just because they need help with Math."

Jean pursed his lips. "Fine. They stopped me decking some jerkwad in the middle of class. I kind of owe them. And they're not too bad to talk to when they're in one of the 'pretending we're not going out' stages."

"Come on, just admit you're a big nerdy romantic."

"Never," Jean hissed, and I popped a cherry tomato in my mouth with satisfaction. Riling Jean up was a great pleasure I took in life.

"So," Mylius said in a voice obviously aimed to catch my attention. He was angled across the table towards Jean and I, his floppy hair falling onto his forehead. "When are you going to introduce us two, Marco?"

I nearly hit my head. "Oops, my bad. I forgot you guys don't know each other - Jean," I said, turning to him, "this is Mylius, one of my friends from Jinae. Beside him is Dazz, and you already know Mina."

Jean nodded stiffly to the two of them. "Hey. If you're Marco's friends, I ain't got a problem with you."

"So if we weren't his friends...you would?" Dazz asked, his forehead crinkling in confusion.

Jean opened his mouth to reply with probably some horrifically offensive words, so I stamped on his foot hard under the table.

"Ow," he squawked with much more volume than it deserved. He looked at me with wounded eyes. "What was that for?"

"You know what for," I warned him.

"Good to see you putting Jean in his place," Eren announced in a loud tone. They would both vehemently deny it, but the smug smile he wore had a striking similarity to Jean's. "Fuck knows someone has to."

"You don't know shit, Jaeger," Jean scoffed.

"Calm down," Eren said with a lazy hand wave at Jean, who puffed up even further. Eren continued talking to me before Jean could let a foul-mouthed tirade rip. "Are you free this afternoon? There's this fencing class I take that I think you'd like, and we're always looking for new members. None of them want to come," he added, gesturing to Armin, Mina, Dazz etc. around the table. "But I do think it'd be up your street."

He turned almost carelessly to Jean. "I guess you could come too if you wanted. Though fencing does involve control, so I don't know how you're going to be with that aspect."

Jean bristled, but I could see underneath Eren's seemingly nonchalant tone to what it was: a genuine invite to help connect with Jean a little more.

I beamed at Eren. "We'd love to. When is it?"

"We'd _love_ to?!" Jean repeated in an astonished tone.

"We would," I said firmly. "Hey Eren, you can put your number into my phone so you can text me the details."

"Good plan," Eren said, accepting the phone I slid over the table to him. "Horseface here already has my number so I'm not gonna bother with him."

"I never wanted to give you my number," Jean protested. "Social justice rants at three fucking A.M. every week of high school," he added to me in what could probably be termed an overtone. "Social justice rants in text form. I shit you not."

Eren cackled and Armin laughed quietly. Jean shook his head as I re-pocketed my phone.

"You're going to regret this," he said obstinately.

"We'll see," I said.

"Hell. Fucking. No."

 

Jean stomped through the sliding doors at the entrance of the gym, narrowly missing rebounding off them as they opened; I followed behind him at a more leisurely pace. He was still stubbornly stating that fencing was lame and the class was going to suck, but I was just glad I'd convinced him to come with me in the first place. A new experience would be good for him.

I was really looking forward to the class myself. I'd played on a few sports teams on high school - I'd even been basketball vice-captain - but I'd never tried out fencing before.

"Smile," I told Jean as we approached Eren and Mikasa, who we'd agreed to meet in the gym foyer. It hadn't surprised me that Mikasa was going to be there too: from what Jean had told me, it sounded like she did everything with her brother.

Jean turned his head to me and pulled his face into an even tighter frown.

"That's my boy," I said brightly.

Eren pulled himself into an upright position from where he was slumped against the wall after he noticed us, and Mikasa gave us a small smile of recognition.

"It's cool you guys could make it," Eren grinned. "Even if you're going to embarass yourself so bad, Jean."

Jean made a harrumphing sound. "Can I remind you of a football game junior year when you fell onto your ass in front of the whole crowd just as-"

"Are they always like this?" I asked Mikasa, trying to drown out the sounds of the two boys sniping at each other.

"Pretty much," she replied, rolling her eyes behind the sweep of her hair.

"Repressed sexual tension?" I joked.

"Not so much. Just general pigheadedness."

We gave each other half-amused glances in acknowledgement of the burdens we had to share, before Mikasa nudged Eren's arm as he gestured wildly at Jean.

"Eren. The class is going to start soon."

"What? Oh yeah, thanks-" Eren turned his shoulder in the direction of the corridor beside us leading off from the foyer. "Follow us. The room we use is hard to find unless you know where it is."

"Am I the only one that feels we're about to be murdered?" Jean grumbled in my ear as we tailed after Mikasa and Eren, the latter talking excitedly about the fencing coach we were going to love.

I smiled. "Maybe there's a secret ring of Satanists posing as a fencing club. Has someone made a movie about that already? They should."

"Don't make fun of me," Jean sniffed haughtily. "But seriously, Eren's fucked up enough to be a member of that."

"Yeah he's strict, but it's really worth it," Eren was saying, apparently unaware of how Jean was theorising on possible links he had to a Devil-worshipping organisation. "And he's annoyingly clean," he said in a said in a tone of acknowledgement, "but at least it always reminds me to clean my stuff after practice. He takes time to make sure we understand, he's a good teacher."

He twisted his head to look at us over his shoulder. "But you know that already, Jean."

"What?" Jean said distractedly, a line of confusion making a groove in his forehead. I wanted to smooth it out with my thumb - he was going to give himself lines way before his time with all the scowling he did - but I reminded myself that would just be weird. Weird ol' Marco. Touching other people's foreheads.

While I was truly living up to the status of nerd Jean professed me to be, Eren was staring at Jean is a similar state of confusion. "You do remember who Professor Ackerman is, right?"

Immediately both the encounters I'd had with the professor at Sina and the library played through my head, only it must have been my imagination that made him about six feet with twin pinpricks of red light in each eye. _OK, Marco, keep it together_ , I told myself. _He's not Cthulhu._

Jean must have been as startled as I was, because his eyes darted to the side to share a panicked look with me as we halted in our steps. He raised his eyebrows dramatically and I shrugged and mouthed 'What?' There was nothing we could do about the figurative Javert to our Valjeans coaching the class we were about to join.

By this point Eren and Mikasa were giving each other glances.

"Are you guys alright?" Eren asked slowly, looking back around to us.

"We're just peachy," Jean ground out between his teeth.

Eren still looked questioning, but evidently decided it wasn't worth pursuing and restarted forward, picking up a conversation with Mikasa.

"Professor Ackerman's the fencing instructor," I mused. "This is going to be interesting."

"Don't," Jean whined. "He hates us, we're not going to last five minutes before he kicks us out."

"Quit being so cynical," I told him, banging our shoulders together playfully. "We'll just have to give him a good impression today to counter the bad ones he has of us. Plus he's your teacher, he knows you. He wouldn't have picked you for those debates if he didn't think you were worthwhile!"

"I was only picked 'cause of my class rank," Jean grumbled, but he looked somewhat appeased all the same.

Satisfied that I'd cheered him up at least a little, I knocked our shoulders together again. "Come on, you remember how short he is. How much damage do you think he can inflict on us?"

Jean gave me a reluctant, tight-lipped smile. "I guess you're right."

 

With a detached air that could be recognised even without seeing his face, Professor Ackerman lunged forward, striking his partner's chest with what even to my untrained eye was perfect form.

"Fifteen-two," he commented and stepped back. His body seemed to relax slightly as he took off his mask with one hand, revealing his dark hair and bored expression.

His opponent bent over gasping, hands braced on his knees. Professor Ackerman hadn't even broken a sweat.

Apart from the small group I was with, the rest of the people in the large hall used for fencing didn't react to this victory - they were all engaged in their own practice, evidently used to whatever superhuman skill Professor Ackerman had just displayed.

The expressions on the faces of my three companions had been almost comically contrasted for the duration of the match we had witnessed (I'd kept sneaking sideways glances through it and trying to stifle laughter, which seemed to be a habit with me whenever Jean was around).

Mikasa was as composed as always, but her eyes were scrutinising the Professor's movements. Eren had a wide grin on his face and punched the air every time Professor Ackerman scored a point, while to my left, Jean's tilted smirk had faded as his face grew even more pale. His jaw was hanging open and I reached across to gently push it shut; this time, he didn't seem to notice.

"Shit the bed, he's good," Jean muttered, still fixated on where Professor Ackerman was strolling over to us, head tilted down to examine his foil.

"You've brought new members," he said without looking up, one finger trailing over some indiscernible mark on his blade.

"Yep. Jean's in Criminal Law with us too, but I don't think you know Marco. Marco, this is Levi. He's the club leader."

I was still reacting to Eren casually calling the Professor 'Levi' that I hadn't noticed his grey eyes moving to me. "You're that one from Sina. This one's friend." His head jerked to Jean beside me. "Marco."

"Marco Bodt, sir," I supplied. "Professor."

He snorted, a surprisingly ungraceful sound to be coming from his lithe body. "Don't bother with the 'sir's here. It's better remove any stick from your ass if you want to get on here. During fencing class, it's 'Levi'. Understood?"

"Yes si-...Levi."

It felt strange speaking so informally to a teacher, especially this one. I caught a glimpse of Jean's face scrunched up as he tried to assimilate himself with the idea of calling his intense lecturer by his first name.

"Eren can show you the ropes, if you're serious about starting learning."

I sensed Jean squirm slightly.

"This isn't a place to goof around or pretend you're in Pirates of the fucking Caribbean. You're learning a skill here, and you're honing it to the best of your ability. That's all."

He cast a critical eye over Jean and I and I was uncomfortably reminded of standing similarly to this outside on the lawn after the Chili Incident. Neither of us had known if there was a required dress code, so we'd chosen our general workout clothes; jogging bottoms, plain T-shirts plus a zip-up hoodie for me. It hadn't seemed too different from Eren and Mikasa's shorts and tank tops.

"Right now you're dressed fine for regular practice, but if you continue, you'll need to get full outfit."

"Neatness," I said, then froze as I realised what had just come out my mouth. Levi stepped back, apparently unconcerned, but Jean was just staring at me. Evidently the panic of being near Levi was getting to me.

" _Dude_ ," he stressed, and I avoided covering my face with my hands.

"Alright," Levi said, his foil held firmly by his side. "I think that's enough. Eren, you can show them the different blades, right?"

"Right," Eren affirmed, as Levi turned to speak to Mikasa.

"Come on," Eren said, leading us from the practice mat. "Now you're introduced we can get to the good stuff." He grinned viciously.

"So, you're really OK with calling him Levi?"

"Sure," Eren shrugged. "Yeah, it's was sort of weird in class, but everyone calls him that here. How did he recognise you? I didn't think you would've been to any of the law buildings before."

"I haven't really. I just sort of bumped into him with Jean once."

Jean made the face he usually did when he was trying not to smile, but Eren didn't notice, stopping at a unit to the side of the room that held different containers, all with various shapes and sizes of foils.

"So, Levi wants me to talk you through this," Eren said, resting one arm against the case. "I'm not really sure I'm qualified to, because I didn't pay much attention during my own first lesson..."

He sounded slightly abashed, and I perked up, my curiosity piqued. "What happened in your first lesson?"

Eren sighed, sounding a shade embarrassed. "I got caught up in the whole sword fighting deal, like a stupid rookie," he said, emphasising finger quotes around the 'sword fighting'. "And I got really frustrated that I couldn't get it right away. So I ended up punching my very first partner in the face."

"Smooth. Classic Jaeger," Jean commented glibly.

"What happened?" I asked, letting his comment slide for now.

"Eh, Levi cussed me out and told me to get my shit together. He was busy with Mikasa though, who's turned out to be great at fencing. Obviously." He said it with as little resentment as I could imagine from someone whose raised sibling was seemingly superior in just about every way, and once again, I felt respect for Eren.

"Don't worry, you're still light-years ahead of Jean and I," I assured him, ignoring Jean's confident "Not for long."

"Just show us what to do and we'll do our best to understand."

"OK," Eren said, breaking off his three-second deathglare match with Jean and picking up stereotypical foil #1. "So, there are a few differences between the foils we use in fencing. This one here..."

 

_Jean_

 

I hated failing at things, and I hated admitting to failing at them even less. Which is why I was trying not to snarl as I lunged forward for the _fiftieth fucking time oh my God I'm not my mom I didn't sign up for Pilates._

What pissed me off even more was that Marco actually seemed to like it.

"You don't look happy, Jean," he said, coming up from his own lunge. He'd taken off his hoodie a while ago and, annoyingly, I could see he had better arm muscles than me.

"This is stupid, we're not learning anything at all."

I went into a lunge the same way Eren had showed us, but overbalanced and nearly tipped forward on my face. Marco quickly threw out an arm to catch my chest soccer-mom style. I huffed as he pulled me upright.

"It takes time. Eren said it's the first piece of footwork we need to learn, so we might as well learn it properly."

"Yeah, but, look at all them." I waved an arm generally at the hall around us, the pairs of students facing off or jabbing with their foils. "They're the ones that're doing it properly."

"They've had practice," Marco said patiently, watching the members of the class. His face morphed into admiration. "I mean, even she must have started where we are."

I followed his line of sight to where Mikasa was sparring with a guy twice her size on a practice mat across the hall. Levi was watching from the side, arms folded. Something in me felt proud to watch her effortless practice, all that steel-like strength impossible to mistake even underneath the delicate beauty.

"Nah, that's not practice," I shrugged. "She's always been great at everything."

Marco blinked in surprise and let out a soft "What the heck," as she had her rapier at her partner's throat in a series of three short, flawless moves.

"'Heck', what are you, five?" I scoffed, switching my gaze from Mikasa to Marco.

"I can say heck if I want to," he told me, prodding the tip of his finger into my chest. "And I can leave my friends behind. 'Cause if I say heck and they don't say heck then they're no friends of mine."

"You're so lame," I snorted, trying to lunge forward again and then wind-milling my arms to stay upright as I pushed off with too much force.

"Wait, you're doing it wrong." Marco sank into a much less clumsy lunge. "You have to be less aggressive with your foot and rely more on pushing with the back of your leg. Or else you'll overbalance." He didn't add 'like you have been' on at the end of that, which I was grateful for, but still. It was implied.

"Nah, this stuff isn't for me," I decided, reaching down to massage my calf muscle. What I really needed to massage was my ass, which was feeling sore as hell after all the lunging I'd been doing, but I recognised that it wasn't the most socially appropriate behaviour.

Marco made a disappointed sound, but I shook my head, moving onto my other calf. "It's fine, man. I tried it, and it's not my thing. I'll stick to the climbing wall from now on."

I straightened up and grabbed Marco's wrist; his watch showed there was still twenty minutes of the class left.

"You carry on with all the lunging stuff, I'll wait for you over there." I jerked my thumb at the benches beside the door that a few people were waiting on. I punched Marco's shoulder, hoping it would do something to clear up his pout.

"OK," he said eventually. "Sorry I dragged you along."

Because he hadn't called me out earlier on how shit at lunging I'd been, I didn't remind him I'd told him all along fencing wasn't something I was going to like.

"Yeah, whatever. At least you're enjoying it. I'll meet you afterwards, right?"

I weaved around the members of the class as I made my way over to the benches, avoiding the annoyed looks I got. The way I saw it, I was helping them develop their skills. It took more attention to not kebab a guy who suddenly appears in front of you than it does when there's no-one there at all. Sometimes I swear I was - what's the word for it again, Marco would know - oh yeah. Magnanimous. Downright magnanimous.

I was surprised, although I probably shouldn't have been, to see Armin on one of the benches.

"Hey," I said, dropping down beside him, unfolding my legs so they wouldn't topple over the pile of books he had stacked on the ground beside him. One of them was sitting open on his lap. "Waiting for Mikasa and Eren?"

Armin smiled at me and closed over the book, keeping one finger inside to hold his place. "Yeah. I wait for them after fencing, they wait for me after Philosophy meetings. It's a fair trade."

"When is this class even held, anyway?" I tilted my head back to the ceiling, wrinkling my nose up as I felt some of my sweat-dampened hair. "It looks like I'll probably be joining you here sometimes."

"Every Thursday and Sunday. So I guess you'll be waiting for Marco?" Armin asked, perceptive as always. "I saw you guys. You looked like you wanted the ground to swallow you, but he seemed to be having fun."

I looked over; Eren and Marco were now talking together, and Eren was showing him one of the blades Levi used, which he'd told us was apparently called a saber, which was different from the foils most people started with.

"He is," I agreed. "Doing this will be good for him."

I looked at Armin when I didn't get a reply; he was studying me with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"What?" I snapped.

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head, but there was still some of that thoughtful gleam left in his eye.

We moved on to talking about other things, regular stuff like classes and our families. Mom was still pressuring me to come home for a weekend, but Armin revealed he, Mikasa and Eren had gone back to Shiganshina last week to visit their families. I liked hearing Armin's tales of his grandad. I'd only met him a couple of times, but he was a cool old dude.

Eventually, I pointed at the book on his lap, thinking it'd be one of the fantasy stories he always recommended to me. "Any hobbits in that one?"

Armin looked down at the book in his lap and his face lit up. I had only a few moments to think _'Shit that's his 'science-is-fascinating' face'_ as he set it down. "Check it out!" he said excitedly, pushing it towards me.

I glanced down at the book lying open on the bench between us and immediately blanched; the page was covered in the weirdest, grossest shit I had ever seen in my life, and I knew Connie and Sasha when they were in their 'into bugs' phase.

"It's fascinating, I only got it a couple of days ago. See here? It's _fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva_ , whole tissues turning entirely to bone." He tapped the page, blue eyes gleaming. "It's like a secondary skeleton starts to form. People can get trapped inside their bodies, isn't that amazing? And look at this! It's a _giant cyst_!"

I stared at Armin in horror as he practically palpitated over the book. Eren may be an angry half-demon, and Mikasa had her whole cool 'could probably kill you' vibe going on, but Armin was, without a doubt, the member of the Shiganshina group who scared me the most. I clapped a hesitant hand on the small blonde's shoulder and he looked up at me with bright eyes.

"Armin," I began, trying not to say the phrase ' _y_ _ou're so totally fucked up oh my God_.' "We're friends, but...please, never show me this shit again. Please."

Armin visibly deflated, but shrugged in agreement. "Fine. Whatever you say. Eren didn't like it either. But you're really missing out!"

I cringed away from the book as he flipped to a new page, but my attempts to shuffle away were blocked by a firm hand on my arm. Twisting my head around, I saw Marco, whose sweet, innocent, freckled face was gazing between me and Armin. Evidently, the class was over. People were putting away equipment and heading out the doors behind us - I noticed Eren, and by association Mikasa, lingering behind to talk to some older students.

"What's the matter?" he asked cautiously. "Are you feeling OK? You look kind of pale."

He switched his gaze from me to Armin. "What have you got there?"

A sudden, incredibly devious thought occurred to me and a sly grin spread onto my lips.

"Armin's got a new book. It's pretty cool. You should check it out."

Marco walked around my chair and leant down to get on Armin's level. "Is this the book Hanji ordered for you?"

"Yes!" Armin replied happily. "Look!"

While Marco's noise of interest merged into one of horror I shook my head, trying not to tip my head back and laugh as Armin mistook the pained sound for one of absorption and bounded into what sounded like a lengthy description on the formation of skin cancer.

I felt bad when I met Marco's betrayed puppy-dog eyes, but seriously. Sometimes being an asshole is so damn _satisfying._

 

"I can't believe you did that to me," Marco was still complaining as we walked through campus. It had gotten dark when we were at the gym, and the paths crossing the college grounds were lit by streetlights. We were headed to Garrison Coffee, as we'd both decided that we needed something incredibly caffeinated after the energy-sucking workout we'd gone through. I ignored the fact I'd been sitting on a bench for a good twenty minutes before he'd finished.

"Come on, it wasn't as funny as you saying 'neatness,'" I said sweetly, laughing as he moaned again in embarrassment. "Look, you're gonna be a doctor, you need to know these things."

"I don't know which branch of medicine I'm going to go into, but it's probably not involving exotic diseases! Besides, I had no idea Armin was capable of looking at things like that." He shuddered.

"Yeah, Armin gets his kicks in weird ways. Creepy little fuck-up," I said in a tone that I would call fond, if I was the type of person to go in for any sort of sentimentality at all.

We approached Garrison on the right and it was hard not to let out a sigh of bliss at how relaxing it looked, with windows steamed up from the heat inside. The coffee house had been done up for Halloween for the past week now: orange and black crepe paper around the walls, candles in the windows and pumpkins covering every surface. Connie came home bitching on several nights about getting seeds down his shirt after having to carve new pumpkins. According to him Sasha had been over every time he was carving them and kept sneaking bites of the flesh before Rico threatened to bar her.

I pulled open the door and looked around. The coffee house was full, but not as busy as I'd feared. Connie wasn't working tonight, which meant we wouldn't get stuff like marshmallows or extra cream with our drinks, but the interior was a lot more inviting than the cold air outside.

"What're you having?" I asked Marco as we walked to the line, which was only three people long, despite just one till being open. Marco's nose was pink from our walk outside, and he was smiling now we were inside the warm room.

"I don't know..." Marco's eyes swept over the board where the staff wrote any of the specials drinks and his mouth opened wide in a smile. "They're still doing pumpkin chai latte!"

"Go to a coffee shop, order a chai latte," I said in a monotone. "Like, could you be any more unoriginal?"

"They're doing gingerbread spice cappuccinos," Marco told me. "Let's see you try to be original and resist _those_."

He had me. Gingerbread drinks were one of my weaknesses - and now I was at college I didn't have my Mom's supplies of gingerbread cookies to satisfy me.

"Yeah, you got me." I scanned the display case. "Want to go half on a slice of pecan pie?"

"You're on." Marco dug in his back pocket for his wallet. I'd never questioned it: Marco was just one of those guys who owned a wallet. Me, I was fine with stuffing tens into the back pocket of my jeans.

A guy with astounding cheekbones served us in half the time and with none of the cursing Connie did, and we managed to get one of the larger four-seat tables rather than the more cramped two-seaters we usually had to deal with.

"They've added more books," Marco mentioned, referring to the bookshelves at the back of the coffee house. I didn't read the books there often - they were too scabby for my liking - but Marco sometimes pulled one out to read if we were sitting nearby. I knew they had some books on military history Armin liked; they had a fairly decent range, and Connie had informed me Rico personally got rid of any copies of Fifty Shades people left on the shelves. As far as co-workers go, he could definitely do worse.

"Hey fuckers," a voice casually said behind us. Marco and I both turned around and got an eyeful of a smirking Ymir. She stood hand-in-hand with Christa who was, as usual, looking like the offspring of an angel and an Abercrombie and Fitch model. She was wearing a parka and woolen legwarmers under her skirt, her shaggily cut hair swept into a side ponytail.

For a minute I was sort of blinded by how good she actually looked; I could see why Ymir and Reiner kept making jokes about marrying her (only Ymir's brand of gay made it a much more viable option).

"Hi guys," Marco said cheerfully. "Want to share our table with us?"

"You having a table is the only reason we came across to sit with you," Ymir drawled, pulling out a chair and dropping into it.

Christa sat down beside her in a much more dignified manner, setting her coffee cup down on the tabletop. "She's kidding, we saw you both when we were in line and I thought we should come over. We haven't had a chance to talk to you guys since we met Marco." She slapped Ymir's hand away as she tried to reach for Christa's drink and carried on talking. "How are you?"

"We'd be a lot better if your girlfriend stopped sending us these freaky texts," I grumbled, shooting a frown at Ymir as I remembered the weird messages of the last few weeks. She didn't seem perturbed by my glare.

The bridge of freckles on Marco's nose disappeared as he scrunched his nose up in confusion. Jeez, the guy was basically a damn Disney character. "Yeah, what's with that?"

"You'll find out." Ymir said in a deliberately mysterious voice, her sharp eyes laughing at us.

Christa gave the other girl an adoring look. "You're evil. I love it."

"I know you do, baby," Ymir purred.

For the next few seconds Marco and I stared at the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but Ymir and Christa as they gazed at each other.

"So..." I began. "Going to tell us about the texts any time soon? 'Cause this eye-screwing is making Marco and I intensely uncomfortable, and if you want to do it that bad, you can always go to the bathrooms and get it on there."

"Jean, it's fine," Marco mumbled. He probably didn't want Ymir and Christa to feel embarrassed, like there was any chance of that happening. From what I knew of her, Ymir thrived off making other people uncomfortable, and Christa was surprisingly forward with describing their sex life.

Ymir eventually dragged her irritated gaze back to us. Christa seemed unwilling to give up the attention and snuggled into her girlfriend's side.

"Look, I'm not going to explain what I'm talking about, it's too funny. When you're ready to figure them out you'll figure them out on your own. Until then I'm going to continue being an irritating shit."

Marco made a good-natured sound of frustration, smiling as he did so. "I guess we'll just have to live with that."

I didn't accept things nearly as well as Marco did and moodily slumped backwards in my seat, internally cursing freckled lesbians to hell and back. My head nearly collided with a guy walking behind me; he scowled and I flipped my middle finger up at him from upside down.

"Jean," Marco admonished, as he tended to do when I was unnecessarily rude. I offered him a lazy grin by way of apology.

"So, are you going to Reiner's this weekend?" Ymir asked, idly running her fingers through Christa's hair. "He's paying for all the drinks, and I'm supplying him from a trusted source."

"Ymir's 'trusted source' is her thirty-year-old cousin," Christa stage-whispered. "She lives in a bungalow and bakes us peanut butter squares."

"Anyway," Ymir continued loudly, "he told me to get a fuckload, so I'm guessing there should be enough for everyone."

"Wow," I stated, imagining what quantity of alcohol even Reiner and Ymir would consider a 'fuckload'.

"I don't know if I'll come," Marco said, darting his fork around mine to get the last piece of pie. He stuck his tongue out at me quickly before he popped it in his mouth.

"What's your major?" Christa asked, twirling a lock of hair around her finger.

"Pre-med. I got a B on my last Chemistry test, so I'm really trying to push that up to an A next time."

"Ah, how cute," Ymir said, looking between us with her smirk firmly back on her face. "Pre-med, pre-law, pre-gay."

"What the fuck, Ymir," I hissed.

"Stop teasing them," Christa said, and Ymir threw her hands up. "I'm so repressed."

Marco and I swapped 'why is this happening to us' gazes. "I'm just going to go to the bathroom," Marco said slowly, getting up from the table.

"Take me with you," I muttered only half-jokingly as he pushed in his chair.

"You'll be fine," he said, patting my back.

"Coward," I called weakly after him.

"He's a nice kid," Ymir said, and I looked round at her. "A bit too nice maybe, but he seems genuine enough." She squinted into the distance. "He looks like he'd be good at oral. Mar-co, more like Mar-blow, am I right?"

I covered my face with my hands. "You're a _lesbian_."

"So? Doesn't mean I'm blind to the virtues of others, precious little Jean-y."

I looked at her through my fingers. "And how'd you know Marco was gay? I thought you'd only talked to him that one time at my place."

Ymir stared at me without saying anything. It was fairly disconcerting actually, so I focused on her freckles, but they were laid disconcertingly differently to Marco's so I looked back up at her eyes.

"He's definitely gay?" she asked and I nodded, wondering where she was going with it.

Christa smiled indulgently at her girlfriend as Ymir reached into the hood of her parka and pulled out a brick-like phone, tapping the keypad. I didn't even know phones could have keypads any more.

Ymir must have noticed me judging it, because she looked up and glared at me. "Yes, this is my shitty phone, and it's my baby. You think that's funny, Kirschtein?"

"I thought your truck was your baby?" Christa asked, thankfully diverting Ymir's attention away from myself, who would have admitted that yes, I thought her relic from E.T.'s spaceship was funny.

"I have three I consider my baby: you, my phone, and my truck. And the last two are only my babies because of how shitty they are." Ymir went back to typing. I had no idea how being called not shitty was endearing, but Christa must have thought it was, because she leant her head against Ymir's shoulder to read what was on her phone.

"Only K3?" the blonde questioned at something Ymir typed and I groaned at the familiar phase, which couldn't mean anything good.

"Gay levels not fully activated," Ymir muttered, flicking her eyes to me then back to Christa then raising her eyebrows in a significant way.

"Ohhh," Christa said, gaze flickering to me as her own huge blue eyes widened further. "I see. Aw, that would be really sweet if they were."

I had no clue what they were talking about, and I didn't like it.

"Life was a lot simpler when I didn't know you," I informed Ymir, feeling myself relax slightly when I saw Marco emerging from the bathrooms.

"That's what they all say," she replied, still typing without looking up. "And it's flattering every time."

"What'd I miss?" Marco asked, sitting back down in his seat.

"The mean gay is ruining my life."

"I'm sure she thinks the same about you," Marco said serenely, and Ymir's sharp laugh rose above my sputtering over the cappuccino. "I like you, kid."

"Traitorous bastard," I hissed at Marco. He smiled.

 

Friday was boring. I only had two classes that day: Trig, which was easy, and Studio Art which I actually liked, so I didn't have to put too much effort into either.

I was in Art, the first stage of my painting drying, when I got a notification in the group message. I abandoned the task of stacking paintbrushes on top of my folder and wiped my hands on my jeans a few times before checking my phone.

**TheOncomingBraun: Yo, whos actually coming tmrrw? Need to know how many beds to make up**

**Jaegermeister: me armin and mikasa will b there**

**likeabraus: i just want to know you're getting lots of snacks, right?**

**TheOncomingBraun: Obviously**

**TheOncomingBraun: I got the weird kebab things you wanted**

**likeabraus: then sure, Connie and I will be there!**

**ConnieSprings: #psyched**

**Anniel: Yes, I'll be there. You know my conditions.**

**TheOncomingBraun: Yeah Annie w/e just dont go kicking people again PLEASE**

**Jaegermeister: LOL pls go kickin ppl again that was gr8**

I read down to Eren's last message, then reluctantly pulled out my keypad. Might as well get it over with as soon as possible.

**JKirschteining: Nah I don't think I'm going**

**TheOncomingBraun: What??**

**Jaegermeister: oooooh**

**ConnieSprings: *pitbull voice* it's. about. to go. down.**

**Jaegermeister: U SUCK JEAN**

**ConnieSprings: were having words when you get home young man**

**ymirs: you're a basic bitch**

**TheOncomingBraun: Thats so lame I had karaoke for you and everything**

**TheOncomingBraun: And those lameass fruity drinks you say you dont like but you totally do**

**TheOncomingBraun: Who's gonna wipe connie's tears when he walks in on bertl and me**

**likeabraus: me, unfortunately**

**ymirs: why jean i had so many k jokes coming up why**

**JKirschteining: You guys are dicks, I'm just not feelin like partying. Get wasted for me though**

**JKirschteining: Film it if annie kicks eren**

I left the group chat then, and dismantled the paintbrush stack with more force than was necessary. It wasn't any of their business if I didn't want to come to Reiner's shitty party. Sometimes (a lot of the time) I wasn't sociable, so fucking what? I flicked one of the paintbrushes, where it spun across the room and hit someone who uttered a loud "OW."

I laughed. When the world shits on you...shit on _it._

Connie and Sasha whined at me about not coming to Reiner's once I got back to my suite after classes, but they moved on soon enough once I threatened to hide the Xbox. I turned down their offer to accompany them to the baldy's athletics practice: no way was I freezing my ass off outside, and Sasha had a tendency to spit food onto whoever she was sitting beside when she heckled insults at the people who Connie was training against.

When they had left I slumped on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. Something was definitely wrong because someone as young and pretty as me should definitely be doing things stuff that didn't involve being slumped on my bed alone on a Friday evening. The problem is there was nothing to do, like zilch. I wasn't even feeling motivated to take out the sleazy porn mags Connie had under his bed.

Connie and Sasha were obviously out of the equation, and Marco's class schedule was crazy busy on Fridays so I wasn't hanging with him.

I didn't need to study - well, I didn't _urgently_ need to study, which was just as good. Procrastination suited me fine.

My last refuge, picking up my sketchbook, was completely ruined because I'd annoyed myself so much by drawing the same damn features - deft fingers and the sort of-maybe familiar crease of a smile - for the past two weeks.

I sighed deep and drawn out, sighed again even deeper and more drawn out, then sighed genuinely when I realised nobody was in the room to tell me to stop being an asshole and actually say what was up. I mean, I couldn't be bothered with most people, but I liked being acknowledged by them, you know?

For lack of anything better to do I picked up my phone, holding it above my face with both hands as I scrolled through my recent texts.

**From Suicidal Idiot:**

**the beats headphones we were talkin have $20 OFF THEM on amazon. HOLY SHIT RIGHT??**

**From Ymir:**

**Im fucking hilarious**

**From Ymir:**

**as lennon said: 'let it k3'**

**From Mikasa:**

**Did you manage to find your Property Law notes?**

**From Connie:**

**fuck man dont get me started on garlic dough balls id sell my liver 4 garlic dough balls**

**From Marco:**

**Are you up yet? Remember to eat breakfast because I swear to God I'm not above force-feeding you Cheerios.**

My finger hovered over Marco's name before I tapped on it and selected the 'call' icon. I pressed the phone to my ear, using my other hand to drag a pillow under my head.

The line rang and I fidgeted, hoping he would pick up. I'd missed talking to him today and the only thing worse than sitting by yourself on a Friday evening is getting your phone call unanswered as you sit by yourself on a Friday evening.

After the fourth ring, the line picked up and I relaxed back into the bed.

"Hi," Marco's voice came over the line, sounding faintly breathless. "I literally just got in, give me a sec-"

I waited impatiently as I heard muffled noises of things being moved, Marco calling a greeting to Bertholdt, and a door closing.

"OK, I'm ready," Marco said finally, huffing as I presumed he sat down. "What's up?"

I felt stupid. "Not much. Just thought I'd call, see how you were doing. We never got a chance to hang out today."

"Yeah, sorry about that, my day's been so hectic! I had a really fun lab though - well, except from Armin bringing that book again."

God. Only Marco would apologise for being too busy.

"It's cool, don't sweat it. You're finished now, right?" I pulled my phone away slightly and checked the time - 7: 46. "Want to go grab a burger? Twenty-four hour MacDonalds is our best friend."

"I can't," he said, the same apologetic tone seeping through the receiver. "I'm helping until late at the student confidential call centre."

"What? I thought you only were there on Tuesdays?" It made me feel kinda ashamed to stand beside Marco when he was such an obviously good guy helping out kids who had issues and needing someone to talk to and all that, but I couldn't help the twinge of irritation when he said he wouldn't be able to hang out with me because of it. I know. I'm a asshole.

"Yeah, it's just they're a person short tonight, so they asked me and I said yes. I'm heading out again in a couple of minutes."

I flopped over and buried my head in the pillow. "My night is ruined. I'm spending Friday alone like a dweeb. A fucking dweeb."

Marco started to speak hurriedly but I cut him off. "Jeez, relax. I'm just being a dick, don't feel bad because you can't come hang with my selfish ass. Go on, talk those guys down from jumping off buildings or whatever."

"That's very insensitive," Marco reprimanded.

"I know, like I said, I'm a dick." I plucked at a loose thread from the pillow, unravelling it. "Just have something to eat before you go, I know how long these shifts can get."

"You're such a mom," Marco said, his voice unmistakably teasing.

"Shut up!"

"Anyway," he continued, "I saw your message in the group chat. About you not going tomorrow."

"Yeah," I grunted. "So you saw everyone else pissed off at me?"

"They weren't pissed off, they were just disappointed you aren't coming. But, of course, it's completely fine if you don't want to go," he added. "Actually, I don't think I'm going either. We could hang out together instead?"

I frowned. Marco had seemed fairly enthusiastic about going when we'd talked about the party earlier. "Are you sure?"

A new thought occurred to me. "Wait, you better not be staying with me because you think I'm pathetic for not going out, because if-"

"God, Jean, no," Marco interrupted, the teasing note in his voice replaced with annoyance. It wasn't often I heard him like that, and it made me shut my trap and listen.

"I'd rather hang out with you than go to the party. It's not because I think you're pathetic, or lonely, or inferior in any sense. I'd just prefer to be with you, and if you don't want to go to Reiner's, then I'll go with you. Do you understand?"

"Yeah," I said sheepishly. "I understand. ...Thanks."

"No problem," he replied, cheerful voice returned almost to normal as if it'd never been gone at all. "Look, I really better head out, but I'll text you later about meeting up, OK?"

"Sure, see ya. I'd tell you to have fun, but..."

"Good _bye_ , Jean," Marc said, but I could definitely hear some amusement mixed in with the frustration.

He hung up, and I tossed the phone back on the bed. Unlike earlier, I didn't feel like joining it. My sketchbook was on the floor between the beds and I reached down to pick it up, flipping it to the most recent page. It was weird how inspiration can hit you, but I guess talking to Mr. Motivational Speech himself had that affect, I thought with a wry half-grin as I slid the pencil out from where it was pushed inside the binder.

 

The sky over Trost was a thick, oppressive grey through the open curtains when I finally got up in the late morning. I surveyed my surroundings blearily. Connie must have gotten back after I went to sleep, because he was crashed out face-down in the bed. My covers were rumpled around me and the floor beside my bed was littered with scrunched-up pieces of paper and paintbrushes from my manic art session last night.

I winced at the light coming in through the curtains and swung my legs over the side of the bed. In a move that was embarrassingly common, my feet got caught up in the bed covers and jerked me onto the floor with a thud.

"Dude," Connie mumbled from the direction of the bed. "Really, again?"

"Fuck off, baldy," I shot back at him, tugging myself to my feet. I winced at the reflection I saw in the mirror - shadowed eyes, disastrous bedhead - and dragged my cover through to the bathroom still draped around my shoulders. I was tired, and it was warm, so I was going to hang onto it for as long as I possibly could.

I had another hour until I had arranged to meet Marco, so I took my time with showering and getting my hair right. I picked at a strand over my head as I looked into the mirror and frowned. It was approaching the shaggy stage again.

There was a pizza place a block from campus that Connie, Sasha and I had always meant to visit sometime, and I'd suggested to Marco that we could meet there for lunch. The staff at Stohess Diner were probably getting tired of us by now, and if the forecast shitted on us like it was threatening to, then at least it wouldn't be too far back to the dorms.

I got dressed back in the bedroom - a red T-shirt my Mom picked out for me once, some jeans I found lying on the floor that looked clean - and paused over Connie's prone form before I left.

"CONNIE," I yelled, taking some sadistic pleasure in his pained moan.

"What is it? Are you Satan?"

"I'm going to meet Marco, I might be staying over at his tonight or he'll be coming over here. I'll text you when I know." I prodded a lump that looked like his shoulder. "You better get up, what about Reiner's party?"

"I'll get up when I get up, now piss off. Go be the majestic dweeb we both know you are."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't choke on your own puke tonight," I called over my shoulder as I left the room, and was rewarded with one of Connie's middle fingers sticking up at me from somewhere under his cover.

It wasn't long to the pizza place, maybe a twenty minute walk, and Marco was already waiting for me outside by the time I got there. Somehow despite his late shift at the call centre he was as put-together as he always was: shirt collar smoothed down, hair in the perfect schoolboy middle parting and smile wide as he saw me approaching.

"How are you real?" I asked, falling into step beside him as he opened the door for me. I was sure the dark circles under my eyes were visible from the space station.

"Hm?"

"You're so _awake_ ," I explained, casting an eye over our surroundings. There were low booths around the room, not unlike the ones at Stohess, and a counter that was half taken up by people behind it flipping pizzas and working ovens. There was a darker colour scheme in here though, obviously trying to emulate fancier authentic Italian restaurants. I sniffed and directed us over to the woman at the other end of the counter dealing with customers.

"You must have got in at what, two last night? Three? You're not human."

"I went for a jog this morning, it cleared my head," he said nonchalantly. "And Bertholdt made lemon muffins for breakfast."

"Are you two living in a '50's sitcom?" I asked, squinting at him.

"We try to," he replied, sighing dramatically.

The couple in front of us finally moved and the woman at the counter smiled at us. "Hi! What are you guys here for today?"

"Seriously?" I said sardonically. "We're in a pizza place, what do you think we're here for?"

"Sorry about him, he's not feeling very sociable today," Marco cut in smoothly. "He'll have the pepperoni supreme with extra pineapple, and I'll have the vegetarian feast, with two large drinks."

"Dude," I protested. He knew I didn't like being interrupted when I was in the middle of complaining.

Marco raised his eyebrows at me. "Go get us some Cokes," he said, and turned back to the girl at the counter.

I huffed, but I really couldn't think of anything else to do, so I stomped over to the drinks bar. When I turned around with the cups he was smirking at me while our order was rung up.

"Go get us a table, I'll be over soon," he told me, taking out his wallet. I'd have to find some way to slip him a few dollars in repayment later.

I found us a booth close by, and true to word it took less than ten minutes before Marco came over with our boxed pizzas. I quickly sent my last text to Connie, who was getting his outfit ready for Reiner's party, and set it on the side of the table as he passed my box to me.

"I'm glad we're not taking out," Marco said, glancing over to the windows. "It looks like it'll be raining later."

"Don't jinx it," I warned him, opening the box and inhaling deeply as I was hit by the smell of warm pizza.

"Did you get stuffed crust?"

"Do you know me?" Marco grinned, opening the lid of his own box. He looked between us and the contents of our table. "You ever think we eat too much food?" he asked. We were both silent for a second, then pulled 'Nah' faces at each other and laughed before slapping our handshake.

The pizza wasn't amazing or anything, but it was good enough for a casual lunch, and Marco and I had fun throwing balled-up napkins back and forth the table at one another, long enough so that passing servers began to give us looks.

"You have paint on your arm," Marco said, catching my hand before I lobbed another ball at him. He turned it over and tapped a paint splatter I'd obviously missed in the shower. I huffed in frustration and took my arm back, scrubbing at it furiously.

"And you've got some flecks here," Marco added, tapping his neck on the place the paint must be on mine.

I rolled my eyes and stopped rubbing my arm. "I'll get them later. Artists must suffer for their art."

"So you're equating you getting paint on yourself to van Gogh cutting off his ear?"

"Ha," I replied deadpan and flicked the unused napkin ball, which hit him dead in the face.

"Have you got any idea what you want to do after this?" Marco picked a tomato off my leftover slice of pizza and popped it in his mouth. "Both of us have free dorm rooms, so we could chill at either of ours."

"We can go back to mine," I offered. "If you don't mind the state of my bedroom."

"Yeah, I'm used to it by now," he said, pinging the napkin back over to me. "Anything particular you want to do? Watch a film, play Halo?"

"I'm good with anything," I said, flipping over the lid of my box. "You ready?"

"Sure," Marco said, popping up from his chair like a jack-in-the-box. He tipped a smile to the girl at the counter as we left. I repressed a cocky salute.

We were outside, halfway down the street, and Marco was laughing at another paint spot apparently under my jaw when he suddenly stopped mid-chortle.

"What is it?" I asked, throwing him a questioning look.

"Did you feel that?" he said, looking up.

And that's when it happened. One single droplet of wetness landing on my nose. Marco glanced from the thick sky overhead back to me.

"Shit," I said, and then we both started running.

I was leading by a few paces, which was mostly due to the fact that I'd grown up in Trost. I knew just how fast a few drops of rain could become a veritable trollface of a thunderstorm from God.

And it did.

"Oh my _God_ ," I could hear Marco practically sob beside my right shoulder as the flood of rain started down on us with a rising crescendo. I was better protected than him; I had my leather jacket, but he was only wearing his shirt and flimsy sweater. Obviously he'd been picking up style tips from Bertholdt, and that was a dangerous road to take.

We crossed over the road into campus grounds, already soaked, and I gritted my teeth as I felt water trickle down my back. There were a few other students around us hurrying to shelter, books held over their head.

"Not long now," I said to Marco above the sound of the rain. The strands of hair that fell onto his forehead were bouncing wetly as he ran, and he gave me a suffering look.

I was counting time based on the feeling of that single raindrop sliding down the skin of my back, so it felt like an eternity before Rose House came into sight.

"It's been eighty-four years," Marco said wistfully, and I laughed involuntarily. "Tell me about it."

We barreled inside and slowed to a stop, panting from the run as we dripped water all over the floor. I looked quickly around; the only person in the foyer to see our ungraceful entrance was the guy at the desk, who had already turned back to his phone.

Marco swiped his hand over his forehead, sweeping his bangs off his face. "Would it be possible for me to borrow some of your clothes?"

"Yeah, sure," I said, making my way towards the stairs. Rose didn't have an elevator, which irritated me daily, especially now I'd ridden in Sina House's one with Marco.

We were on the second floor when I heard familiar excited chattering from the stairs above.

"Prepare yourself," I advised Marco.

He blinked; tiny crystals of water had got caught up in his lashes and speckled his cheeks when his eyes closed. For a second my hands itched for a pencil to draw it.

"Connie and Sasha," was all I said before the gruesome twosome appeared on the steps above us.

First all I could make out was the thick raincoats they had on, and then I saw their outfits beneath them. I wasn't even surprised that they'd chosen to dress up for Reiner's party, but the whole matter of what it was they were wearing was a serious issue. "What the hell kind of costumes are these?" I asked incredulously.

"Awesome ones," Connie declared, striking a pose with a hand on either side of his yellow T-shirt. His face and neck were covered entirely in green-grey paint the same shade as the fake tentacles that obscured the view of his legs. "Nobody dresses up as Squidward, it's great. And if I do duckface, I can be Handsome Squidward." He scrunched his face into a pout to accentuate his point.

"You're lame."

"Whatever, Jean-bo. I know you just still haven't got over that Peter Pan outfit you wore in third grade."

"Shut up," I said quickly, darting a look at Marco, who seemed amused. "I told mom not to show you these pictures."

Sasha crunched loudly on the handful of chips she'd just shoved into her face and I cast my critical eye past the hair she'd tied into two long braids instead of her usual ponytail. Underneath her jacket she had on a long red hood and chains around her neck, and she carried a basket in her free hand. Noticing me staring, she pushed up her sleeve to reveal an arm of fake tattoos.

Marco and Connie both cracked up, and she looked disappointed at my bewildered face.

"Get it? I'm Little Red Riding in the Hood!"

Marco started laughing even harder, and I just continued staring blankly at her. "You're kidding me. That is the worst thing I've ever heard."

"Come on, Jean," she said, batting her eyelashes. "Aren't I prrretty?"

"Not really. You have crumbs around your face."

Sasha swiped at them, unbothered. "Anyway, we're heading out to Reiner's. He's picking us up so Connie's make-up isn't ruined."

"Say hi to him from us," Marco said. "He's probably taking on way too much than he has to making sure everything goes well tonight."

"That's what Sash and I are heading there for, giving him a hand to set up," Connie said with a slap to Marco's back which was only possible because he was standing two stairs above.

Sasha skipped past us down the stairs. "We'll see you guys later. I left ice cream in the fridge, which you can eat, and there's cookies and chips in the cupboard, which you can't."

"You don't even live with us," I said despairingly.

"As if that would stop me. Let's go, Connie, I want to see if Reiner's got pumpkins at his." She blew a kiss to Marco and I and hopped down the steps with Connie following. "I'll get Armin to send you some pictures," Connie smirked. "It's gonna be a wild night."

"Why Armin?" Marco asked once Connie had disappeared down the stairs and we'd resumed walking.

"Armin isn't a big drinker, so he's usually the one recording everything that goes on. You'll probably see later tonight," I said, taking out my keycard when we reached our floor. Privately, I couldn't wait to see Marco's reaction to half the stuff that went down at our parties. And even better, I didn't have to be there to witness it firsthand.

Once we got inside my suite I gave Marco a shirt of mine to get changed into, which he took into the bathroom while I stripped off beside my cupboard. He knocked hesitantly on the door as I just finished yanking it over my head, and I grinned when I saw him. The shirt he was wearing was my one from high school with the football team's logo printed on it. It was a fine fit for me, if slightly roomy, but the material noticeably pulled tighter on Marco's broader shoulders and sturdier frame. I had, as Connie liked to embarrassingly point out, I had girl hips.

"Your football shirt is a lot smaller than my one," Marco said sheepishly, tugging at the bottom of it.

"Oh yeah, you said you played in high school," I said, rifling through my cupboard. "What position were you again?"

"Quarterback," Marco said bashfully, then made a sound of surprise as a piece of balled-up clothing hit him in the chest.

"It's one of those hoodies you like so much," I explained, selecting one for myself. It was too cold for us to just walk around in T-shirts, and me with a red, running nose was not a pretty sight.

"Good plan," Marco said, tugging it on while he followed me through to the den area of the suite.

"So, what you want to do now?" I asked, looking around the room. "We've got Halo, Mario Kart, lots of DVDs..."

Marco considered the room. "Do you mind if we watch something?"

"Nah, that's fine." I turned to Connie's and my DVD collection.

"I was actually thinking something else," Marco said almost shyly. "Um...have you ever seen _Game of Thrones_?"

I cocked my head to the side, thinking. " _Game of Thrones_? Armin's kind of obsessed with it."

"Yeah, he's the one who got me into watching it."

"I know it's meant to be good, but isn't it basically like, boobs and dragons?"

Marco started laughing and sat down on the couch, patting the space beside him invitingly. He took my laptop off the floor and settled it on his lap. I sat beside him tentatively as he switched it on. Boobs and dragons were great and all, but...

"Believe me," Marco said, "you've got a big storm coming."

 

"What the fuck?" I exclaimed as the end credits for the fourth episode rolled onscreen. "What the fuck?"

Marco had the grace not to look too smug. Over the past few hours of watching we'd migrated closer together so we were huddled against one another staring at my laptop's screen, and now I stretched out my arms, shaking my head.

"That was intense. Damn."

"Mm-hm," Marco said, unable to stop at least some satisfaction seeping into his voice. I exhaled, still stuck in the episode. "I'm calling a break. I need a drink. And therapy."

I padded through to the kitchen and ran the tap, sticking my head under the faucet to get a drink of water - there was no point wasting time getting a glass from the cupboard.

"So dignified," I heard Marco's voice from behind me. "Such epitome of grace."

"Fuck off," I said amiably, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. Marco was reaching into the cupboard for his own glass, and I took out my phone and blinked in surprise when I saw the notifications. We'd spent longer watching _Game of Thrones_ than I'd thought, judging by how dark it was outside.

I had a missed call from my mom, which and I sighed in acceptance; I'd been putting off giving her a call for a few days now, so I would have to make it tonight.

"Give me a minute," I told Marco, punching the speed-dial button for home. "I'm calling my parents."

I really should have taken a warning from the way Marco's face lit up.

"Your parents? Cool, I haven't talked to them yet."

"Nope, don't even think about it," I said harshly, taking firm steps into the hall. "You're not talking to my mom with your cutesy voice and manners, she'd lap you up. Fuck no, you stay right there."

I pressed the phone to my ear and frowned as Marco, undeterred, came to lean against the wall beside me.

"Are you sure I can't talk to her," he said, sounding genuinely interested. "I want to know if you were born as grumpy as you are now."

"Fuck off!" I sputtered, and there was the connecting click as the other end picked up.

"Hello, you've reached the Kirschtein residence."

"Yo, Mom."

"Jean-bo!" my Mom cried, her soft French accent going from polite to enthusiastic screech in 0.2 seconds. "You haven't called in days, we've been worried! You know how these text things confuse me, I don't understand what you mean by typing 'K' to my questions three times in a row."

"Yeah, hello to you too," I sighed, slumping down onto the floor. I couldn't hide much of the smile in my voice. "How've you been?"

After Mom got me to go through each day in detail since I last called and nagged me about the lack of nutritional value in my meals, she dragged dad from the garage (he was a DIY freak) and made me repeat the same to him, both of them making way too absorbed sounds in reactions to my stories. I was an only child and they'd doted on me a lot when I was younger, so even now I was pretty spoiled by them.

"You guys need to get a life outside of me," I informed them. Beside me, Marco snickered, a habit he'd picked up more and more throughout the conversation even with only hearing my end of it. I shot him a look before my mom continued speaking.

"Have you met any nice girls yet? I'm sure there's someone that's caught your eye, I know my Jean," she said teasingly. I resisted the urge to whine 'Mooooom.' Since I told her about one of my first crushes, Mikasa, she'd never gotten off my case about people I might have a crush on.

"Or boys!" my dad interrupted. "Any lads you're going to bring back home for us to meet?"

"You'll have to work on your facial expressions if you want to get a partner," mom scolded. "We love you, but you do have a permanently annoyed face. It might put off people who don't know how lovely you are."

"I don't look permanently annoyed!" I scowled, turning to Marco. "Do I?"

"Not permanently," he said in a soothing tone. "Just like, eighty percent of the time."

While I stuck my finger up at him, my mom was reacting eagerly to the new voice.

"Who's that, are you with a friend? Connie or Sasha?"

"Is that a boyfriend?" my dad yelled happily. "Are you in a secret relationship? That's what they call it nowadays, right? Put us on loudspeaker!"

I thunked my head dully off the wall and reluctantly pressed the loudspeaker button, giving Marco an apologetic grimace. "I'm not in a relationship, I don't have any girlfriend beside me. It's just a friend. Marco." I shrugged at him.

"Oh, so this is Marco! The Jinae boy you met?"

Marco turned to me, beaming. "You told your mom about me?"

"Don't take too much from it," I grumbled awkwardly. "You heard her, she gets everything out of me."

"Hello, Marco," dad said loudly. "We've been hoping Jean would make some new friends when he moved for college, but he's always found it hard to bond with new people." He laughed fondly and I averted my eyes from Marco, face burning. "We really appreciate it."

" _Shut up, dad_ ," I hissed.

"Don't talk to your father that way," mom said immediately, voice sharp. "I've talked to you about being rude before, Jean."

"Mom, seriously," I groaned. Marco didn't seem bothered, leaning over to speak into the receiver. "Thanks, Mr. Kirschtein, but Jean's made it easy for me. He's fairly amusing to have around."

"I'm _amusing_? That's it," I said snatching the phone off the floor and cancelling loudspeaker.

"Marco seems lovely," mom trilled as I put it back to my ear. She didn't get angry often, but when she was annoyed it only came in little bursts, leaving as quickly as it arrived. "It's nice you're friends."

"Yeah yeah, whatever. I'm going now," I told her. "You two have filled your embarrassment quota for tonight. I'll call you later."

"Call us tomorrow," mom lectured. "Or the day after, at least."

"Fine, will do. Can I go now?"

Marco laughed quietly again beside me and I hung up on my parents calling "We love you!" and reminders for me not to grind my teeth.

I stared at my phone for a few seconds after hanging up, not wanting to meet Marco's gaze. "...Sorry about that," I eventually said.

Marco laughed again. "Don't start with that, your parents are great. It's very flattering you've been talking about me to them."

"I haven't been talking about you, I mentioned you like one time and they latched onto it-stop laughing, dude-" I elbowed Marco, who was doing his weird giggling thing again. He shuffled out of the way and climbed to his feet, holding out an arm to pull me up. "Back to _Game of Thrones_?"

"Sure," I agreed, stretching my arms out. Watching hours of incest, backstabbing and profound words took preparation.

"Wait," Marco said suddenly, halting as I made to walk back into the den. "Do you have a blanket to use or something? We'll probably fall asleep after a few more episodes."

"A blanket?" I repeated disbelievingly, brain unable to come up with anything other than the term 'Actual baby princess Marco Bodt.'

"I like blankets," Marco said defensively. "And you need comfort when you watch something like _Game of Thrones_."

"Alright, I'll give you that. C'mon." I lead the way into the bedroom, flicking on the switch as I went inside. Marco was probably used to the mess by now, so I didn't offer any explanation for the clothes strewn on the floor.

I jerked open my cupboard doors and pulled out a few random items from the bottom; I was sure I'd left some blankets in there when we moved in.

Marco had wandered over to a particular section of the wall, and I didn't think much of it until I turned around with one of my old blankets. There were always new photos tacked up on the pinboard every time Marco came over to visit - I was still putting them up even though I'd been here for over a month. I was, as I'd said before, something of a procrastinator.

I walked over slowly behind Marco, tailing my gaze from the pictures of a family holiday, past one of Connie, Eren and I doing mach poses in our letterman jackets, to the one on the board directly in front of him.

That picture had been taken on the day of our graduation. In it Connie and I were lifting Sasha up, all three in our red graduation gowns. Sasha was waving a baguette, which her dad had given to her for some reason after we'd all gone to mingle with our families, but I didn't remember wearing the full grin on my face. I didn't smile like that often, but it had been a good day.

Marco moved on down the wall to the corner that held all my art shit; my sagging easel, the charcoals I'd given up on and paints I'd held up to dry. By this point it was getting crowded.

"You do like to draw, don't you," Marco commented softly, the first confirmation he'd given of my presence since we'd entered the room. I just watched as he reached up to touch one of my half-finished sketches tacked up on the wall.

I looked sharply to him in surprise, lips parting. We hadn't discussed my drawing much. "I..."

"These are amazing," he continued. "You've got a talent for this. You really do." He looked me in the eyes with a small smile, as if he wanted to punctuate these last words, then turned around to continue studying them.

I wasn't sure what to say. I wasn't sure what to do next at all, expect my chest felt as if it'd swelled up, leaving my brain stuttering and awkward. It was the way Marco looked at my shitty sketches, like he knew right away how important they were to me, no matter how much I downplayed them. It was the way he touched the paper carefully.

Marco was a great friend, I thought, looking at the back of his straight-laced middle parting. It was such a great feeling, standing there with a person who made you want to punch the air and say ' _hell yeah_.'

That feeling when you make a new friend (rare for me, I know) was good and all, but this was the moment you realised that they were here to stay. That you were worth holding onto, that they thought you were worth holding onto. Everyone deserved to feel that about another person. I hoped most people did, at least once. Because it was fucking awesome. Friendship, man. There doesn't have to be any sort of big or explosive moment to solidify it. It just has to matter.

"I get it," Marco said, completely oblivious to my pathetically heart-warming epiphany. "Your art is like how I get with words. That's what we both like doing."

"Yeah," I said, then cringed at how happy I sounded. I cleared my throat and came out with a much deeper "Yeah. I understand, bro."

Marco finally looked at me, seeming concerned. "Are you OK? It sounds like there's something in your throat. Have you been smoking today?"

"Uh, never mind," I said sheepishly, letting my voice return to its usual pitch. "Let's go watch some swords and incest."

"Truly a mission statement rallying _Game of Thrones_ fans worldwide."

I smiled inwardly as we made our way back to the den. That first time on the roof I said we'd be friends but it wasn't until now that I knew I really, definitely, meant it.

 

_Marco_

 

After we took a break, Jean and I got through another episode and a half before our phones kept disturbing us too much to ignore.

"Fuck it," Jean swore, leaning across to pause the episode on his laptop. I sighed and settled back against the foot of the couch (we'd somehow emigrated onto the floor in the last hour) as he tossed me my phone and picked up his own. I had a few texts from various people, all misspelled and nearly incomprehensible. A few of them were - I think - referencing pumpkins, so I assumed they were all coming from Reiner's party.

There were only three voicemails, one from Sasha and two from Eren. Tentatively, I opened the first.

"Marco! Marco. Marco-Marco. Hey. It's Sasha!" Her bubbly laugh sounded loud in my ear, joined by the lower chuckle of who I guessed was Connie. There was incredibly loud music in the background making it hard for me to make out exactly what it was she was saying.

"We're at the party. With the food. There's toffee apples, which are so good...wait, no. That was not what I called about. Jean! He's hogging you all to himself, that's why we can't party with you right now. Which is sad. We like you, don't we, Connie? Connie? We like Marco!"

"WE LIKE MARCO," Connie's voice came so suddenly and loudly that I jumped a bit.

"We do! Yeah, so...um...that's what we were calling to say. You missed us on karaoke. And these amazing pork sausages, mmm..."

Sasha's hungry moan was interrupted by Connie yelling "Don't drop the bass!" Then: "Shit! She dropped it!" as the thundering bass in the background did, indeed, drop. Reiner must have gotten his way with Annie's DJ-ing, and I seriously hoped there would be pictures tomorrow.

I felt fond of Jean's two best friends as I waited for Eren's call to come on. I'd have to suggest the four of us hang out more.

Eren's first call was nearly four minutes long, but I quit after the first minute - there was just ruffling sounds and dim voices in the background, which must have been a pocket dial.

The second call was the opposite, nine seconds, but even more baffling: the whole call was just a scream of pure, unadulterated rage from start to finish, no breaks, which did admittedly sound quite like Eren.

I heard a choked, angry laugh from Jean as I set the phone and looked at him - he turned his phone to me, displaying a finished ten-second video onscreen and tapped the replay button.

Immediately, blaring noise began as the person filming captured a fairly crowded room - Reiner's den. The focus of the video was obviously Reiner, Connie and Sasha who were playing what _sounded_ like Red Hot Chili Peppers at what _looked_ like Rock Band.

Despite the questionable musicality, the partygoers were cheering with abandon and toasting the trio with red cups. The camera then panned slowly around to Armin's terrified face, and at that point, the video cut out.

"Wow," I said, blinking.

"Yeah, wow," Jean snorted, but I could tell he was amused. "They're going to have killer headaches tomorrow."

"Maybe you should-" I began, but was disrupted by a huge yawn breaking out from my mouth, which I muffled with the blanket

"Tired?" Jean asked with a quirk of his eyebrow.

"Maybe," I admitted. "It's pretty late."

"Sleep is for amateurs."

"Weird. I thought you would have been that kid at sleepovers who told everyone else to shut up so you could sleep."

"Yeah, that was me," Jean said, his eyebrows furrowing again. "Connie was the dick who wouldn't shut up."

"So the point of all of this is..."

"It's still too early for bed." He flapped his side of the blanket for emphasis. "Let's do stuff. Yo-fucking-lo."

I looked at him. "'Yo-fucking-lo?'"

Jean tilted his head to the side. His lips pursed. "Maybe I do need some sleep."

"Yeah," I said, extending my legs and wiggling my sock-covered toes. "You want to just crash here? I don't really want to disturb that... _artful_ mess you've got going on in your room."

"Haha, fuck you," Jean said deadpan, then yawned, apparently having given up on appearing awake. "Sure, why not? I hoovered a couple days ago so we should be OK for dust and shit."

He shoved his laptop to the side and flopped his head backwards, letting it rest against the couch. "How many more blankets have we got there?" he asked, cracking an eye open at me. "If we're crashing on the floor I don't want to put my back out."

"Whatever you say, grandad," I said amused, reaching over for a comforter. "This good enough?"

"Should be," he said critically, taking it from me and dumping it haphazardly in our laps. "Yeah, good enough."

He shuffled forward on his ass in a surprisingly endearing move until the comforter reached up to his nose. He scowled at me. "What're you grinning about?"

I shook my head and lowered myself until I was lying down. I didn't think Jean would like it if I told him that with his messed-up hair and pouting he looked like a particularly sleepy, angry possum.

"Can I put the light off?" I asked, outstretching my fingers to the lamp we'd brought through from Jean's room.

"Sure," he said, and I found the switch, immediately dropping us into darkness. I heard Jean shifting beside me, trying to get into a more comfortable position.

"Having trouble there?" I asked, doing my best to keep a laugh out of my voice.

"Your long-ass legs are taking up too much room," Jean complained, somehow managing to plant his foot in my face.

I warbled and pushed him away, feeling bad as his head connected with the couch and he made an 'oof' sound. "How the hell did you manage to get your foot up there?!"

"Ancient Chinese proverb: the Kirschtein men are flexible," he said with a smug smirk that I sensed rather than saw.

"That's cool, as long as you keep your pool noodle limbs away from me," I said as threateningly as I could. His elbow brushed against mine as he moved back to face me.

"Damn, you're a bitch when you're tired," Jean said, sounding simultaneously teasing and surprised. "Are you going to kick me out the blankets in the middle of the night?"

"I'll have you know I am a bundle of light and laughter," I mumbled. An embarrassingly squeaky  yawn broke out of my mouth and I buried my face into the pillow, hoping Jean hadn't heard.

"You're fucking adorable," I heard Jean's voice mutter sleepily. I turned my head in confusion - that didn't sound like the grump I knew - but he was obviously more asleep than awake; his hair was mussed above his closed eyes and his breaths were coming evenly from just-parted lips.

If anyone in this room was winning the 'fucking adorable' award, it wasn't going to be me.

I smiled at the sap and how quickly he could fall asleep, and burrowed down deeper into the covers. They smelled comfortingly like Jean's shampoo, and that scent was my last impression of consciousness before my own eyes shuttered closed.

 

_Jean_

 

 

Waking up tangled together with another boy wasn't exactly a usual thing for me: Connie was a kicker so whenever we had sleepovers it was in my best interests to sleep as far from him as possible, and the one time I went home with a guy in Trost I left as soon as I woke up. I hated having to talk to people in the morning, and judging from his shelves, he was more of a DC than Marvel kind of guy. I couldn't be expected to deal with that.

The point I'm trying to make is that it was really damn disconcerting to open my bleary eyes and realise I was being cuddled with my head nestled on a broad chest, my legs entangled with someone else's.

(I'm not entirely complaining, though. It was cosy, and he wasn't hogging the covers, like some people I could think of, _Sasha_.)

I didn't really want to put in any effort to moving my head, but I tilted it back slightly so that I could see Marco's freckled cheeks and the brush of black hair against his forehead. I snorted when I saw he slept with his mouth open.

I didn't remember falling asleep last night, but it must have been late by how heavy my eyes felt. To be honest, I could have done with another four hours napping, but the floor had really stiffened up my back. My stomach grumbled ominously and I catalogued 'breakfast' in the list of present issues. Like, at this point I would probably eat Connie's stash of pot brownies. And these things were strong.

"Hey, Marco," I said with as much patience as I could muster. "Marco."

He didn't move, and I cleared my throat. "Marco."

This time he stirred, frowning lightly. I sighed and dug my elbow sharply into his stomach. "Rise and shine, princess."

Marco's eyes jolted open and he looked dazed before his eyes focused on me poised above him on one elbow. He beamed, and I decided I liked the thought that I'd seen his first smile of the day.

"Morning, Jean," he said, his voice scratchy with sleep.

"Yo," I replied, shifting over to give him some room to stretch out. His back cracked and he winced.

"Come to think of it, sleeping on the floor wasn't such a good idea."

"Understatement of the century," I agreed, pushing away the covers as I got up. The light coming past the window blind was pissing me off, but at least it wasn't strong enough to make me start cursing. Still, I moved about the room with half-slit eyes, getting adjusted to the dread state of being awake.

"You're really not a morning person, are you?" Marco's amused voice came from the floor. I thought he would have realised this fundamental part of my personality after the first few morning Gov classes we shared together, but whatever. I wasn't really an afternoon, evening or night person either. I was mildly agreeable at around two A.M. after several vodkas, but that was the only period I could be considered cheery in any way.

"And you are a morning person," I stated, picking up my phone. It was just past eleven, which qualified both under 'morning' and 'too early to be awake at on a Sunday.'

"Mornings are all fresh," Marco said as if that made any sense. "I feel good in mornings, there's a lot to look forward to."

"Thanks for the words of wisdom," I said sarcastically, flicking through drunk texts I'd gotten last night. Ones from Sasha and Connie started mildly comprehensible then tailed off into a stream of consonants and numbers. They were still more legible than Sasha and Connie usually were, though.

I switched over to our group message and scrolled up, to be greeted with a picture of me passed out on a pillow, mouth hanging open wider than Marco's had been in a way even I couldn't entirely pull off. Marco was in the corner of the frame looking amusedly at the camera; the dick had put the caption before it as 'life in the Jeangle.'

The messages under it were from our friends (sounding fairly hungover even in message format) offering Marco various congratulations on snapping the photo.

"You're such an asshole," I told Marco idly. He laughed delightedly; I had no idea how people could actually think this kid was innocent.

"Are you wanting to get breakfast?" I heard him say and I immediately tossed my phone onto the couch, narrowly missing his head.

"Yes," I said enthusiastically. "I'm starving, but I don't think Connie and I have much food left..." We were big on takeout, Con and I.

"That's fine," Marco shrugged. "We can go out for breakfast. Or is it brunch at this time?"

"You smooth motherfucker," I said with a suggestive grin. "Taking me out for brunch, is this how you treat all the guys you sleep beside the morning after?"

"Oh ha ha," Marco said, a faint blush staining his cheeks. "I'm going to go get changed."

"I'm insulted, Marco," I yelled after him as he left the room. "I thought you'd at least take your one night stands out for dinner while you let them down!"

"Don't be stupid," he yelled back from the corridor. "The quickie I give them in the bathrooms is enough to make up for it, my mother taught me to be a gentleman!"

I choked back a laugh. I loved it whenever Marco's cheeky side came out. "Touché, man," I said, shaking my head. I rubbed my ear, noting my own ratty T-shirt and pyjama pants. I should probably get changed too.

"Hey, want to go to Garrison?" I shouted, sticking my head into the corridor. "They do pancakes, and we can just slum it because nobody's there on a Sunday except the hangover crowd."

"Let's go with Garrison," he agreed, sounding muffled. He was probably pulling a shirt over his head. I wondered if he was wearing his shirt from yesterday or if he was borrowing one of mine again. The idea didn't annoy me like I thought it would.

"I would ask if you wanted to share pancakes but I think we're both hungry right now to eat a stack of them by ourselves," Marco continued. "Is that OK?"

Scratch what I said earlier about Marco being anything other than a pure, sweet angel. "I respect you a lot right now," I said genuinely. "Pancakes are fucking important to me."

The bedroom door opened and Marco emerged, wearing his own collared shirt, dried since yesterday's rainstorm.

"You still haven't changed?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Don't give me that look, asshole," I replied, brushing past him in the doorway. "You were in my room."

"If you hurry maybe we'll be able to get there while they still have the maple syrup bottles topped up," Marco said slyly as I closed the door.

I blinked and immediately started tugging my shirt off. "Seriously, so much respect for you right now," I called through the door.

"Don't get too involved," his voice sounded amused. "You know I'm like this with all the one night stands."

I laughed again as I pulled on some flannel I was fairly sure had been washed recently. "You're a bad influence on me," I told him.

"You love it," he said, slipping into his teasing voice as I danced around, pulling my jeans up one leg.

"Meh, debatable," I said as I did the zipper. "You're not too bad, I guess."

I slung my leather jacket over one shoulder and opened the door, almost walking into Marco, who was still in the doorway.

"Pancakes?" I said, holding out a palm for our handshake. We slapped it and Marco drew back, his eyes crinkling.

"Pancakes," he confirmed.

I slipped some bills into my pocket and nudged the door open for Marco as we made our way out of the dorm.

"You know, we should probably keep our heads down in Garrison. I don't want one of my other one night stands to see us and get the wrong idea, I usually have high standards. Ancient Chinese proverb: Don't go home with someone wearing a flannel shirt inside out."

I looked down and groaned.

"Ouch, freckles. Ouch."

 


End file.
